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“ LOTH BOYS FELL BACK, FAINT WITH FATIGUE.” 


See page 28. 


THE 


Cruise of the Albatross 

OR 

When Was Wednesday the Tenth? 


& ^torg of tfje &0utfj Pacific 


GRANT ALLEN 


AUTHOR OF “THE GREAT TABOO,” “MICHAEL’S 
CRAG,” “THE WOMAN WHO DID,” 

“ COMMON-SENSE SCIENCE,” 

ETC. 


Ellustratet! Eg ISrtogman 


BOSTON 



LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY 


2nd * f 

1898 . 


TWO COPIES RECEIVED 


P7_2> 

. A^-2. 5 C 


6624 


Copyright, i8q8, 
by 

Lothrop Publishing Company. 




Colonial Press: 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 
Boston, U. S. A. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER * 

I. We Sight a Boat 

II. The Boat’s Crew 

III. The Mystery Solved . 

IV. Martin Luther’s Story 

V. A Break-down 

VI. On the Island . 

VII. Errors Excepted 
VIII. Hot Work . 


7 

2 3 

36 

5 ° 

65 

79 

9 2 

104 



THE 


CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS 















































* 






























































THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


CHAPTER I. 

WE SIGHT A BOAT. * 

On the eighteenth day out from Sydney, we 
were cruising under the lee of Erromanga, — of 
course you know Erromanga, an isolated island 
between the New Hebrides and the Loyalty 
group, — when, suddenly, our dusky Polynesian 
boy, Nassaline, who was at the masthead on 
the lookout, gave a surprised cry of “ Boat 
ahoy ! ” and pointed with his skinny black 
finger to a dark dot, away southward on the 
horizon, in the direction of Fiji. 

I strained my eyes and saw — well, a barrel 
or something. For myself, I should never have 
made out it was a boat at all, being somewhat 


7 


8 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


slow of vision at great distances; but, bless 
your heart! these Kanaka lads have eyes like 
hawks for pouncing down upon a canoe or a 
sail, no bigger than a speck afar off ; so when 
Nassaline called out, confidently, “Boat ahoy!” 
in his broken English, I took out my binocular, 
and focussed it full on the spot towards which 
the skinny black finger pointed. Probably, 
thought I to myself, a party of natives, painted 
red, on the % war-trail against their enemies in 
some neighboring island ; or, perhaps, a “ labor 
vessel,” doing a veiled slave-trade in “inden- 
tured apprentices” for New Caledonia or the 
Queensland planters. 

To my great surprise, however, I found out, 
when I got my glasses fixed full upon it, it was 
neither of these, but an open English rowboat, 
apparently, making signs of distress, and alone 
in the midst of the wide Pacific. 

Now, mind you, one doesn’t expect to find 
open English rowboats many miles from land, 
drifting about, casually, in those far-eastern 
waters. There’s very little European shipping 
there of any sort, I can tell you; a man may 


WE SIGHT A BOAT. 


9 


sometimes sail for days together, across that 
trackless sea, without so much as speaking a 
single vessel ; and the few he does come across 
are mostly engaged in what they euphoniously 
call “ the labor-trade,” — in plain English, kid- 
napping blacks or browns, who are induced to 
sign indentures for so many years’ service (gen- 
erally “ three yams,” that is to say, for three 
yam crops), and are then carried off by force or 
fraud to some other island, to be used as laborers 
in the cane fields or cocoanut groves. So I 
rubbed my eyes when I saw an open boat, of 
European build, tossing about on the open, and 
sang out to the man at the wheel : 

“Hard a starboard, Tom! Put her head 
about for the dark spot to the sou’-by-south- 
east there ! ” 

“Starboard it is!” Tom Blake answered, 
cheerily, setting the rudder about; and we 
headed straight for that mysterious little craft 
away off on the horizon. 

But there ! I see I’ve got ahead of my story, 
to start with, as the way is always with us salt- 
water sailors. We seafaring men can never spin 


IO 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS, 


a yarn, turned straight off the reel all right 
from the beginning, like some of those book- 
making chaps can do. We have always to luff 
round again, and start anew on a fresh tack, 
half a dozen times over, before we can get well 
under weigh for the port we’re aiming at. So I 
shall have to go back myself to Sydney once 
more, to explain who we were, and how we 
happened to be cruising about on the loose, that 
morning, off Erromanga. 

My name, if I may venture to introduce my- 
self formally, is Julian Braith waite. I am the 
owner and commander of the steam-yacht Alba- 
tross , thirty-nine tons burden, as neat a little 
craft as any on the Pacific, though it’s me that 
says it as oughtn’t to say it; and I’ve spent 
the last five years of my life in cruising in and 
out among those beautiful archipelagos in search 
of health, which nature denies me in more north- 
ern latitudes. The oddest part of it is, though 
I’m what the doctors call consumptive, in Eng- 
land, — only fit to lie on a sofa and read good 
books, — the moment I get clear away into the 
Tropics I’m a strong man again, prepared to 


WE SIGHT A BOAT 


II 


fight any fellow of my own age and weight, 
and as fit for seamanship as the best Jack Tar 
in my whole equipment. The Albatross num- 
bers eighteen in crew, all told ; and as I am not 
a rich enough or selfish enough man to keep 
up a vessel all for my own amusement, my 
brother Jim and I combine business and pleas- 
ure by doing a mixed trade in copra or dried 
cocoanut with the natives, from time to time, 
or by running across between Sydney and San 
Francisco with a light cargo of goods for the 
Australian market. 

Our habit was, therefore, to cruise in and out 
among the islands, with no very definite aim 
except that of picking up a stray trade when- 
ever we could make one, and keeping as much 
within sight of land, for the sake of company, as 
circumstances permitted us. And that is just 
why, though bound for Fiji, we had gone so far 
out of our way, that particular voyage, as to be 
under the lee of Erromanga. 

As for our black Polynesian boy, Nassaline, 
to tell you the truth, I am proud of that lad, for 
he’s a trophy of war; we got him, at the point 


12 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


of the sword, off a slaver. She was a fast 
French sloop, “recruiting” for New Caledonia, 
as they call it, on one of the New Hebrides, 
when the Albatross happened to come to anchor, 
by good luck or good management, in the same 
harbor. From the moment we arrived I had 
my eye on that smart French sloop, for I more 
than half suspected the means she was employ- 
ing to beat up recruits. Early next morning, as 
I lay in my bunk, I heard a fearful row going 
on in boats not far from our moorings; and 
when I rushed up on deck, half dressed, to find 
out what the noise was about, blessed if I 
didn’t see whole gangs of angry natives in ca- 
noes, — naked, of course, as the day they were 
born, or only dressed, like the ancient Britons, 
in a neat coat of paint, — pursuing the French 
sloop’s jolly-boat, which was being rowed at 
high pressure by all its crew towards its own 
vessel. “By Jove!” said I, “what’s up?” So, 
looking closer, I could make out four strapping 
young black boys, lying manacled in the bottom, 
kicking and screaming as hard as their legs and 
throats could go, while the Frenchmen rowed 


WE SIGHT A BOAT. 


13 


away for dear life, and the Kanakas in the 
canoes paddled wildly after them, taking cock- 
shots at them, with very bad aim, from time to 
time with arrows and firearms. Such a splutter 
and noise you never heard in all your life. 
Ducks fighting in a pond were a mere circum- 
stance to it. 

“ Tom Blake! ” I sang out, “is the gig afloat 
there ? ” 

“ Aye, aye, sir,” says Tom, jumping up. “She’s 
ready at the starn. Shall we off and at ’em ? ” 

“Right you are, Tom!” says I; “all hands 
to the gig here ! ” 

Well, in less than three minutes, I’d got that 
boat under weigh, and was rowing ahead be- 
tween the Frenchmen and their sloop, with our 
Remingtons ready, and everything in order for 
a good stand-up fight of it. 

When the Frenchmen saw we meant to inter- 
cept them, and found themselves cut off between 
the savages on one side and an English crew 
well armed with rifles of precision on the other, 
they thought it was about time to open negotia- 
tions with the opposing party. So the skipper 


14 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


stopped, as airy as a gentleman walking down 
,the Boulevards, and called out to me, in French, 
“ What do you want, ahoy there ? ” 

“Ahoy there, yourself,” says I, in my very 
best Ollendorff. “We want to know what 
you’re doing with those youngsters ? ” 

“Oh! it’s that, is it?” says the Frenchman, 
as cool as a cucumber, coming nearer a bit, and 
talking as though we’d merely stopped him with 
polite inquiries about the time of day or the 
price of spring chickens ; while the savages, 
seeing from our manner we were friendly to 
their side, left off firing for awhile, for fear of 
hitting us. “ Why, these are apprentices of 
ours — indentured apprentices. We’ve bought 
them from their parents by honest trade — paid 
for ’em with Sniders, ammunition, calico, and 
tobacco ; and if you want to see our papers and 
theirs, monsieur, here they are, look you, all 
perfectly en regie” and he held up the bundle 
for us to inspect in full, — with a telescope, I 
suppose, — at a hundred yards’ distance. 

“ Row nearer, boys,” I said, “ and we’ll talk 
a bit with this polite gentleman. He seems to 


WE SIGHT A BOAT. 


15 


have views of his own, I fancy, about the proper 
method of engaging servants.” 

But when we tried to row up, the Frenchman 
stopped, and called out, at the top of his voice, 
in a very different tone, all bustle and bluster, 
“ Look out, ahead, there ! If you come a yard 
closer, we open fire. We want no interference 
from any of you Methodistical missionary fel- 
lows.” 

“We ain’t missionaries,” I answered, quietly, 
cocking my revolver, in the friendliest possible 
fashion, right in front of him; “we’re traders and 
yachtsmen. Show ’em your Remingtons, boys, 
and let ’em see we mean business! That’s 
right. Ready! present! — and fire when I tell 
you ! Now, then, monsieur, you bought these 
boys, you say. So far, good. Next, then, if you 
please, who did you buy them from ? ” 

The Frenchman turned pale, when he saw 
we were well armed and meant inquiry; but he 
tried to carry off still with a little face and 
bluster. “ Why, their parents, of course,” he 
answered, with a signal to his friends in the 
ship to cover us with their firearms. 


1 6 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

“From their parents? Oh, yes! Well, how 
did you know the sellers were their parents ? ” 
I asked, still pointing my revolver towards him. 
“ And why are the boys so unwilling to go ? 
And what are the natives making such a noise 
over this little transaction in indentured labor 
for? If it’s all as you say, what’s this fuss and 
row about ? Keep your rifles steady, lads.” 

“ They want to back out of their bargain, 
I suppose, now they’ve drunk our rum and 
smoked our tobacco,” the Frenchman said, 
evasively. 

“ No true, no true,” one of the natives shouted 
out from beyond, in his broken English. “ Man 
a oui-oui /” — that’s what they call the French, 
you knpw, all through the South Pacific, — 
“ man a oui-oui , bad, — no believe man, a oui- 
oui, — him make us drunk, so try to cheat us.” 

“ Now you look here, monsieur,” I said, se- 
verely, turning to the skipper, “ I know what 
you’ve been doing. I’ve seen this little game 
tried on before. You landed here last night, 
with your peaceable equipment for recruiting 
labor, — we know what that means, — a Win- 


WE SIGHT A BOAT. 


17 

Chester sixteen-shooter and half a dozen pairs 
of English handcuffs. You brought on shore 
your ‘ trade ’ — a common clay pipe or two, some 
cheap red cloth, and a lot of bad French Gov- 
ernment tobacco; and you treated the natives 
all round to free drinks of your square gin. 
When they’d reached that state of convenient 
conviviality that they didn’t know who they 
were, or what they were doing, you took advan- 
tage of their guileless condition. You picked 
out the likeliest young men and lads, selected 
any particularly drunken native lying about loose, 
to represent their fathers, made ’em put their 
marks to a formal paper of indentures, and 
handed over twenty dollars, a bottle of rum, 
and a quid of tobacco, as a consolation for the 
wounded feelings of their distressed relations. 
You’ve been carrying them off all night at your 
devil’s game ; and now, in the morning, the 
natives are beginning to wake up sober, miss 
their friends, and put a summary stop to your 
little proceedings. Well, sir, I give you one 
minute to make up your mind ; if you don’t 
hand us over these four lads to set on shore 


1 8 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

again, we’ll open fire upon you; and as we’re 
stronger than you, with the natives at our back, 
we’ll make a prize of you, and tow you into Fiji 
on a charge of slave-trading.” 

Before the words were well out of my mouth, 
the French skipper had given the word “ Fire ! ” 
and the bullets came whizzing past, and riddling 
the gunwale of the gig beside us. One of them 
grazed my arm below the shoulder and drew 
blood. Now there’s nothing to put a man’s 
temper up like getting shot in the arm. I lost 
mine, I confess, and I shouted aloud, “ Fire, 
boys, and row on at them ! ” Our fellows fired, 
and the very same moment the natives closed 
in and went at them with their canoes, all alive 
with Sniders, lances, and hatchets. It was a 
lively time, I can tell you, for the next five min- 
utes, with those lithe, long black fellows swarm- 
ing over them like ants ; and poor Tom Blake 
got a bullet from a French rifle in his thigh, 
that lodges there still in very comfortable quar- 
ters. But one of the Frenchmen fell back in 
the jolly-boat, shot through the breast, and the 
skipper, who turned out to be a fellow with 


WE SIGHT A BOAT. 


19 


one sound leg and a substitute, was severely 
wounded. So we’d soon closed in upon them, 
the natives and ourselves, and overpowered their 
crew, which was only ten, all told, besides the 
fellows on the big vessel in the harbor. 

Well, we took out the four boys, when the 
mill was over, and transferred them to our gig ; 
and then we escorted the Frenchmen, ironed in 
their own handcuffs, to the deck of their sloop, 
with the natives on either side in their canoes 
rowing along abreast of us like a guard of 
honor. The crew of the sloop didn’t attempt 
to interfere with us as we brought their com- 
rades handcuffed aboard ; if they had, why, then, 
with the help of the savages, we should have 
been more than a match for them. So we 
prowled around the ship on a voyage of dis- 
covery, and found ample evidence, in her get-up, 
of her character as an honest and single-hearted 
recruiter of labor. A rack in the cabin held 
eight Snider rifles, loaded for use, above which 
hung eight revolvers, employed, doubtless, in 
self-defence against the lawless character of the 
Kanakas, as the skipper (with his hands in irons 


20 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


and his eyes in tears) most solemnly assured us. 
The sloop was prepared throughout, with loop- 
holes and battening-hatches, to stand a siege, 
and could have made short work of the natives 
alone had they tried to attack her, for she 
carried a small howitzer, not so big as our own ; 
but she never suspected interference from a 
European vessel. We went down into her hold, 
and there we found about forty natives, men, 
women, and children, — free agents all, the 
skipper had declared, — packed as tight as her- 
rings in a barrel, and with stench intolerable to 
the European nostril. Such a sight you never 
saw in your life. There they lay athwart ship, 
side by side, the unhappy black cattle, some 
handcuffed and manacled, others dead drunk 
and too careless to complain, while the women 
and children were crying and screaming, and 
the men were shouting as loud as they could 
shout in their own lingo. . 

Fortunately, we had a sailor aboard the Alba- 
tross who had been a beach-comber (or degraded 
white man who lives like a native) for three 
years on the island of Ambrymon, and had a 


WE SIGHT A BOAT. 


21 


Kanaka girl for a sweetheart ; so he could talk 
their palaver almost as easy as you can English, 
and he acted as interpreter for us with the poor 
people in the hold. We knocked their hand- 
cuffs off, and explained the situation to them. 
About a dozen of the wretchedest and most 
squalid-looking of the lot were prepared, even 
when we offered them freedom, to stand by their 
last night’s bargain, and go on to New Cale- 
donia; but the remainder were only too delighted 
to learn that they might go ashore again ; and they 
gave us three ringing British cheers as soon as 
they understood we had really liberated them. 

As for the four boys we’d got in the gig, three 
of them elected at once to go home to their own 
people on the island ; but the fourth was our 
present black servant, Nassaline. He, poor boy, 
was an orphan ; and his nearest relations, hav- 
ing held a consultation the day before whether 
they should bake him and eat him, or sell him 
to the Frenchman, had decided that, after all, he 
would be worth more, if paid for in tobacco and 
rum, than if roasted in plantain leaves. So, as 
soon as he found we were going to put him on 


22 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


shore again, the poor creature was afraid after all 
he was being returned for the oven ; and fling- 
ing himself on his face in the gig, grovelling 
and cringing, he took hold of our knees and be- 
sought us most piteously (as our sailor trans- 
lated his words for us) to take him with us. Of 
course, when we entered into the spirit of the 
situation, we felt it was impossible to send the 
poor fellow back to be made “ long pig ” of ; so, 
to his immense delight, we took him along, and 
a more faithful servant no man ever had than 
poor Nassaline proved from that day forth to me. 

I’ve gone out of my way so far, as I said 
before, to tell you this little episode of my life 
in the South Pacific, partly in order to let you 
know who Nassaline was, and how we came by 
him ; but partly, also, to give you a side glimpse 
of the sort of gentry, both European and native, 
one may chance to knock up against in those 
remote regions. It’ll help you to understand 
the rest of my yarn. And now, if you please, 
I’ll tack back again, once more, into my proper 
course, to the spot where I broke off in sight 
of Erromanga. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE BOAT’S CREW. 

Presently, as we headed towards the black 
object on the horizon, Nassaline stretched out 
that skinny finger of his once more (no amount 
of feeding ever seemed to make Nassaline one 
ounce fatter), and cried out in his shrill little 
piping voice, “Two man on the boat! him 
makey signs for call us ! ” 

I’d give anything to have eyes as sharp as 
those Polynesians. I looked across the sea, 
and the loppy waves in the foreground, and 
could just make out with the naked eye that 
the rowboat had something that looked like a 
red handkerchief tied to her bare mast, and a 
white signal flapping in the wind below it ; but 
not a living soul c.ould I distinguish in her with- 
out my binocular. So I put up my glasses and 
looked again. Sure enough, there they were, 
23 


24 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


two miserable objects, clinging, as it seemed, 
half dead, to the mast, and making most piteous 
signs with their hands to attract our attention. 
As soon as they saw that we had really sighted 
them, and were altering our course to pick them 
up, their joy and delight knew no bounds, as we 
judged. They flung up their arms ecstatically 
into the air, and then sank back, exhausted, as 
I guessed, on to the thwarts, where they had long 
ceased sitting or rowing. 

They were wearied out, I imagined, with long 
buffeting against that angry and immeasurable 
sea, and must soon have succumbed to fatigue, 
if we hadn’t caught sight of them. 

We put on all steam, as in duty bound, and 
made towards them hastily. By and by, my 
brother Jim, who had been off watch, came up 
from below and joined me on deck, to see 
what was going forward. At the same moment, 
Nassaline cried out once more, “Him no two 
man! Him two boy! Two English boy! Him 
hungry, like a dying!” And, as he spoke, he 
held his own skinny bare arm up to his mouth, 
dramatically, and took a good bite at it, as if 


THE BOAT'S CRE W. 


25 


to indicate in dumb show that the crew of the 
boat were now almost ready to eat one another. 

Jim looked through the glasses, and handed 
them over to me in turn. “By George, Julian,” 
he said, “Nassaline’s right! It’s a couple of 
boys, and, to judge by the look of them, they’re 
not far off starving!” 

I seized the glasses and fixed them upon the 
boat. We were getting nearer, now, and could 
make out the features of its occupants quite 
distinctly. A more pitiable sight never met my 
eyes. Her whole crew consisted of two white- 
faced lads, apparently about twelve or thirteen 
years old, dressed in loose, blue cotton shirts 
and European trousers, but horribly pinched 
with hunger and thirst, and evidently so weak 
as to be almost incapable of clinging to the 
bare mast whence they were trying to signal us. 

Now, you land-loving folk can hardly realize, 
I dare say, what such an incident means at sea ; 
but to Jim and me, who had sailed the lonely 
Pacific together, for five years at a stretch, that 
pathetic sight was full both of horror and un- 
speakable mystery. For anybody, even grown 


2 6 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


men long used to the ocean, to be navigating 
that awful expanse of water, alone, in an empty 
boat, is little short of ghastly. Just think what 
it means! A stormy sheet that stretches from 
the north pole to the south, without one streak 
of continuous land to break it; a stormy sheet 
on which the winds and waves may buffet you 
about, in almost any direction, for five thousand 
miles, with only the stray chance of some remote 
oceanic isle to drift upon, or some coral reef to 
swallow you up with its gigantic breakers. But 
a couple of boys! — mere children, almost! — 
alone, and starving, on that immense desert 
of almost untravelled water! On the Atlantic 
itself your chance of being picked up from open 
boats by a passing vessel is slight enough, 
heaven knows ! but on the Pacific, where ships 
are few and routes are far apart, your only al- 
ternative to starvation or foundering is to find 
yourself cast on the tender mercies of the can- 
nibal Kanaka. No wonder I looked at Jim, and 
Jim looked at me, and each of us saw unaccus- 
tomed tears standing, half ashamed, in the eyes 
of the other. 


THE BOAT’S CREW . 


2 7 


“Stop her!” I cried. “Lower the gig, Tom 
Blake! Jim, we must go ourselves and fetch 
these poor fellows.” 

At the sound of my bell the engineer pulled 
up the Albatross , short and sharp, with admira- 
ble precision, and we lowered our boat to go 
out and meet them. As we drew nearer and 
nearer with each stroke of our oars, I could 
see still more plainly to what a terrible pitch 
of destitution and distress these poor lads had 
been subjected during their awful journey. 
Their cheeks were sunken, and their eyes' 
seemed to stand back far in the hollow sockets. 
Their pallid white hands hardly clung to the 
mast by convulsive efforts with hooked fingers. 
It was clear they had used up their last reserve 
of strength in their wild efforts to attract our 
passing attention. 

I thanked heaven it was Nassaline who kept 
watch at the masthead when they first hove in 
sight. No European eye could ever have dis- 
covered the meaning of that faint black speck 
upon the horizon. If it hadn’t been for the 
sharp vision of our keen Polynesian friend, 


28 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


these two helpless children might have drifted 
on in their frail craft forever, till they wasted 
away with hunger and thirst under the broiling 
eye of the hot Pacific noontide. 

We pulled alongside, and lifted them into 
the gig. As we reached them, both boys fell 
back, faint with fatigue and with the sudden 
joy of their unexpected deliverance. “ Quick, 
quick, Jim! your flask!” I cried, for we had 
brought out a little weak brandy and water on 
purpose. “ Pour it slowly down their throats 
— not too fast at first — just a drop at a time, 
for fear of choking them.” 

Jim held the youngest boy’s head on his lap, 
and opened those parched lips of his, that looked 
as dry as a piece of battered old shoe-leather. 
The tongue lolled out between the open teeth, 
like a thirsty dog’s at midsummer, and was hard 
and rough as a rasp, with long, weary watching. 
We judged the lad at sight to be twelve years 
old or thereabouts. Jim put the flask to his 
lips, and let a few drops trickle slowly down 
his burnt throat. At touch of the soft liquid 
the boy’s lips closed over the mouth of the flask 


THE BOAT'S CRE W. 


2 9 


with a wild movement of delight, and he sucked 
in, eagerly, as you may see a child in arms suck 
at the mouthpiece of its empty feeding-bottle. 
“That’s well,” I said. “He’s all right, at any 
rate. As long as he has strength enough to 
pull at the flask like that, we shall bring him 
round in the end somehow.” 

We took away the flask as soon as we thought 
he’d had as much as was good for him at the 
time, and let his head fall back once more upon 
Jim’s kindly shoulder. Now that the first wild 
flush of delight at their rescue was fairly over, 
a reaction had set in ; their nerves and muscles 
gave way simultaneously, and the poor lad fell 
back, half fainting, half sleeping, just where Jim 
with his fatherly solicitude chose to lay him. 

Tom Blake and I turned to the elder lad. 
His was a harder and more desperate case. 
Perhaps he had tried more eagerly to save his 
helpless brother; perhaps the sense of respon- 
sibility for another’s life had weighed heavier 
upon him at his age — for he looked fourteen; 
but at any rate he was well-nigh dead with 
exposure and exhaustion. The first few drops 


30 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


we poured down his throat he was clearly quite 
unable to swallow. They gurgled back, insen- 
sibly. Tom Blake took out his handkerchief, 
and, tearing off a strip, soaked it in brandy 
and water in the cup end of the flask; then 
he gently moistened the inside of the poor lad’s 
mouth and throat with it, till at last a faint 
swallowing motion was set up in the gullet. 
At that, we poured down some five drops, cau- 
tiously. To our delight and relief, they were 
slowly gulped down, and the poor white mouth 
stood agape, like a young bird’s, in mute appeal 
for more water — more water. 

We gave him as much as we dared, in his 
existing state, and then turned to the boat for 
some clue to the mystery. 

She was an English -built rowboat, smart and 
taut, fit for facing rough seas, and carrying a 
short, stout mast amidships. On her stern we 
found her name, in somewhat rudely painted 
letters, Messenger of Peace: Makilolo in Tanaki . 
Clearly she had been designed for mission ser- 
vice among the islands, and the last words which 
followed her title must be meant to designate 


THE BOAT’S CREW. 


31 


her port, or the mission station. But what that 
place was I hadn’t a notion. 

“Where’s Tanaki, Tom Blake?” I asked, 
turning round, for Tom had been navigating 
the South Seas any time this twenty years, 
and knew almost every nook and corner of the 
wide Pacific, from Yokohama to Valparaiso. 

Tom shifted his quid from one cheek to the 
other, and answered, after a pause, “ Dunno, sir, 
I’m sure. Never heerd tell of Tanaki in all 
my born days ; an’ yet I sorter fancied, too, I 
knowed the islands.” 

“There are no signs of blood or fighting in 
the boat,” I said, examining it close. “ They 
can’t have escaped from a massacre, anyhow.” 
For I remembered at once to what perils the 
missionaries are often exposed in these remote 
islands — how good Bishop Patteson had been 
murdered at Santa Cruz, and how the natives 
had broken the heads of Mason and Wood at 
Erromanga, not so many months back, in cold 
blood, out of pure lust of slaughter. 

“ But they must have run away in an aw- 
ful hurry,” Tom Blake added, overhauling the 


32 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


locker of the boat, “for, see, she ain’t found; 
there ain’t no signs of food, or anything to” hold 
it, nowheres, sir; and this ’ere little can must 
’a’ been the on’y thing they had with ’em for 
water.” 

He was quite right. The boat had clearly put 
to sea unprovisioned. It deepened our horror 
at the poor lads’ plight, to think of this further 
aggravation of their incredible sufferings. For 
days they must have tossed, in hunger and thirst, 
on the great deep. But we could only wait to 
have the mystery cleared up when the lads were 
well enough to explain to us what had happened. 
Meanwhile, we could but look and wonder in 
silence ; and, indeed, we had quite enough to do, 
for the present, in endeavoring to restore them 
to a state of consciousness. 

“ Any marks on their clothes ? ” my brother 
Jim suggested, with practical good sense, look- 
ing up from his charge as we rowed back 
towards the Albatross , with the Messenger of 
Peace in tow behind us. “ That might help us 
to guess who they are, and where they hail 
from.” 


THE BOAT'S CREW. 


33 


I looked close at the belts of the lads’ blue 
shirts. On the elder’s I read, in a woman’s 
handwriting, “ Martin Luther Macglashin, 6, 
’87.” The younger boy’s bore, in the same 
hand, the corresponding inscription, “ John Knox 
Macglashin, 6, ’86.” It somehow deepened the 
tragedy of the situation to come upon those sim- 
ple domestic reminiscences at such a moment. 

“ Sons of a Scotch missionary, apparently,” I 
said, as I read them out. “ If only we could 
find where their father was at work, we might 
manage to get some clue to this mystery.” 

“We can look him up,” Jim answered, “when 
we get to Fiji.” 

We. rowed back in silence the rest of the way 
to the Albatross , lifted the poor boys tenderly 
on board, and laid them down to rest on our 
own bunks in the cabin. Serang - Palo, our 
Malay cook, made haste at the galleys to dress 
them a little arrowroot with condensed milk; 
and before half an hour the younger boy was 
sitting up in Jim’s arms, with his eyes and 
mouth wide open, craving eagerly for the nice 
warm mess we were obliged to dole out to his 


34 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


enfeebled stomach in sparing spoonfuls, and 
with a trifle of color already returning to his 
pale cheeks. He was too ill to .speak yet, — his 
brother, indeed, lay even now insensible on the 
bunk in the corner, — but as soon as he had 
finished the small pittance of arrowroot, which 
alone we thought it prudent to let him swallow 
at present, he mustered up just strength enough 
to gasp out a few words of solemn importance, 
in a very hollow voice. We bent over him to 
listen. They were broken words we caught, 
half rambling, as in delirium, but we heard 
them distinctly, — 

“Steer for Makilolo — Island of Tanaki — 
Wednesday the tenth — Natives will murder 
them — My mother — my father — Calvin — and 
Miriam.” 

Then it was evident he could not say another 
word. He sank back on the pillow, breathless 
and exhausted. The color faded from his cheek 
once more as he fell into his place. I poured 
another spoonful of brandy down his parched 
throat. In three minutes more he was sleeping 
peacefully, with long, even breath, like one who 


THE BOAT'S CREW. 


35 


hadn’t slept for nights before on the tossing 
ocean. 

I looked at Jim and bit my lips hard. “ This 
is, indeed, a fix,” I cried, utterly nonplussed. 
“ Where on earth, I should like to know, is 
this island of Tanaki ? ” 

“ Don’t know,” said Jim. “ But wherever it 
is, we’ve got to get there.” 


CHAPTER III. 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 

We paused for awhile, and looked at one 
another’s faces blankly. 

“ Suppose,” Jim suggested at last, “ we get out 
the charts, and see if such a place as Tanaki is 
marked upon them anywhere.” 

“ Right you are,” says I. “ Overhaul your 
maps, and when found, make a note of.” 

Well, we did overhaul them for an hour at a 
stretch, and searched them thoroughly, inch by 
inch, Jim taking one sheet of the Admiralty 
chart for the South Pacific, and I the other; 
but never a name could we find remotely re- 
sembling the sound or look of Tanaki. Tom 
Blake, too, was positive, as he put it himself, 
that “ there weren’t no such name, not in the 
whole thunderin’ Pacific, nowheres.” So, after 
long and patient search, we gave up .the quest, 
36 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 


37 


and determined to wait for further particulars 
till the boys had recovered enough to tell us 
their strange story. 

Meanwhile, it was clear we must steer some- 
where. We couldn’t go beating wildly up and 
down the Pacific, on the hunt for a possibly 
non-existent Tanaki, allowing the Albatross to 
drift at her own sweet will wherever she liked, 
pending the boys’ restoration to speech and 
health. So the question arose what direction 
we should steer in. Jim solved that problem 
as easy as if it had come out of the first book 
of Euclid (he was always a mathematician, Jim 
was, while, for my part, when I was a little chap 
at school, the asses’ bridge at an early stage 
effectually blocked my further progress. I could 
never get over it, even with the persuasive aid 
of what Doctor Slasher used politely to call his 
vis a tergo). 

“They’re too weak to row far, these lads,” 
Jim said, in his didactic way, — ought to have 
been a schoolmaster or a public demonstrator, 
Jim: such a head for proving things! “There- 
fore they must mostly have been drifting before 


38 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

the wind ever since they started. Now, wind 
for the last fortnight’s been steadily nor’east,” 
— the anti-trade was blowing. “ Therefore, they 
must have come from the nor’east, I take it; 
and if we steer clean in the face of the wind, 
we’re bound sooner or later to arrive at Tanaki.” 

“Jim,” said I, admiring him, like, “you’re 
really a wonderful chap. You do put your 
finger down so pat on things ! Steer to the 
nor’east it is, of course. But I wonder how 
far off Tanaki lies, and what chance we’ve got 
of reaching there by Wednesday the tenth?” 
For, though we didn’t even know yet who the 
people were who were threatened with massacre, 
at this supposed Tanaki, we couldn’t let them 
have their throats cut in cold blood without 
at least an attempt to arrive there in time to 
prevent it. 

Of course we knew with our one brass gun 
we should be more than a match for any Mela- 
nesian islanders we were likely to meet with, 
if once we could get there ; but the trouble 
was, should we reach in time to forestall the 
massacre ? 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 39 

By Wednesday the tenth we must reach 
Tanaki — wherever that might be. 

Jim took out a piece of paper and totted up 
a few figures carelessly on the back. “ We’ve 
plenty of coal,” he said, “ and I reckon we can 
make nine knots an hour, if it comes to a push, 
even against this head wind. To-day’s the 
sixth ; that gives us four clear days still to the 
good. At nine knots, we can do a run of two 
hundred and thirty-six knots a day. Four two- 
hundred -and -thirty -sixes is nine hundred and 
forty-four, isn’t it ? Let me see ; four sixes is 
twenty-four, put down four and carry two ; four 
three’s is twelve, and two’s fourteen ; four two’s 
— yes, that’s all right : nine hundred and forty- 
four, you see, ex-actly. Well, then, look here, 
Julian: unless Tanaki’s further off than nine 
hundred and forty-four nautical miles, — which 
isn’t likely, — we ought to get there by twelve 
o’clock on Wednesday, at latest. Nine hundred 
and forty-four miles is an awful long stretch for 
two boys to come in an open boat. I don’t 
expect these boys can have done as much as 
that — or anything like it.” 


40 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


“ Wind and current were with them,” I ob- 
jected, “and she was drifting like one o’clock 
when we first sighted her. I shouldn’t be sur- 
prised if she was making five or six knots an 
hour before half a gale, all through that hard 
blow. And the poor boys look as if they might 
have been out a week or more. Still, it isn’t 
likely they would have come nine hundred 
knots, as you say, or anything like it. If we 
put on all steam, we ought to arrive in time to 
save their father and mother. Anyhow, we’ll 
try it.” And I shouted down the speaking- 
tube, “Hi, you there, engineer! — pile on the 
coal hard and make her travel. We want all 
the speed we can get out of the Albatross for 
the next three days.” 

“All square, sir,” says Jenkins; and he piled 
on, accordingly. 

So we steamed ahead, as hard as we could 
go, in the direction where we expected to find 
Tanaki. 

Half an hour later, Nassaline, who had been 
down below, with the Malay cook and one of 
the men, looking after the patients, came up on 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 


41 


deck once more, with a broad grin on his jet- 
black face, from ear to ear, and exclaimed in 
his very best Kanaka-English, “ Boy come 
round again. Eat plenty arrowroot. Eat allee 
samee like as if starvee. Call very hard for see 
Massa Captain.” 

“ What do you think’s the matter with them, 
Nassaline ? ” I asked, as I walked along by his 
side towards the companion-ladder. 

Nassaline’s ideas were exclusively confined 
to a certain fixed and narrow Polynesian circle. 
“ Tink him fader go sell him for laborer to a 
man oui-oui , or make oven hot for him,” he 
answered, grinning; “so him run away, and 
come put himself aboard Massa Captain ship; 
so eat plenty — no beat, no starvee.” 

It was his own personal history put in brief, 
and he fitted it at once as the only possible ex- 
planation to these other poor fugitives. 

“Nonsense!” I said, with a compassionate 
smile at his innocence. “ White people don’t 
sell or eat their children, stupid ! It’s my 
belief, Nassaline, we’ll never make a civilized 
Christian creature of you, in a tall hat, and 


42 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

with a glass in your eye. You ain’t cut out for 
it, somehow. How many times have I explained 
to you, boy, that Christians never cook and eat 
their enemies ? They only love them, and blow 
them up with Gatlings or Armstrongs — a 
purely fraternal method of expressing slight 
differences of international opinion. Now, 
come along down, and let’s see these lads. 
It’s some of your heathen relations, I expect, 
the poor fellows are flying from.” 

But I omitted to have remarked to him (as I 
might have done) that I hadn’t seen such a 
painful sight before, since I saw the inhabitants 
of a French village in Lorraine — old men, 
young girls, and mothers with babies pressed 
against their breasts — dying, pell-mell, before 
the sudden onslaught of a hundred and fifty 
Christian Prussian Uhlans. These little pecu- 
liarities of our advanced civilization are best 
not mentioned to the heathen Polynesian. 

In the cabin we found both boys now fairly 
on the high road to recovery, though still, of 
course, much too weak to talk ; but bursting 
over, for all that, with eagerness to tell us their 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 


43 


whole eventful history. For my own part, I, 
too, was all eagerness to hear it; but anxiety 
for their safety made me restrain my impatience. 
The elder boy, now leaning on his elbow and 
staring wildly before him with horror, — a mere 
skeleton to look at, with his sunken cheeks and 
great hollow eyes, — began to break forth upon 
me with his long tale in full; but I soon put a 
stop to that, you may be pretty sure, with most 
uncompromising promptitude. “ My dear Mr. 
Martin Luther Macglashin,” I said, severely, 
giving him the full benefit of all his own various 
high-sounding names, for greater impressiveness, 
“ if you don’t lean back this moment upon your 
pillow, quiet your rolling eye down to every-day 
proportions, and answer only in the shortest pos- 
sible words nothing but the plain questions I put 
to you, — hang me, sir, if I don’t turn you and 
John Knox adrift again upon the wild waves, 
and continue on my course for Levuka in Fiji.” 

“ Why, how did you come to know our 
names?” he exclaimed, astonished. “You 
must be as sharp as a lynx, captain.” 

“ That’s not an answer to any question I 


44 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


asked you,” I replied, with as much sternness as 
I could put in to my voice, looking at the poor 
fellow’s starved white face. “ But as a special 
favor to a deserving fellow creature, I don’t 
mind telling you. I’m as sharp as a lynx, as 
you say, and a trifle sharper; for no lynx 
would have looked for your names on the flap 
of your shirts. There, that’ll do now ; don’t 
try to talk; but just answer me quietly. Where 
do you come from, and where do you want 
us to go to ? ” 

Martin lifted up his face and answered, with 
becoming brevity, “ Tanaki.” 

“ That’s better ! ” I said. “ That’s the sort 
of way a fellow ought to answer, when he’s 
more than half starved with a week at sea. But 
the next thing is, where’s Tanaki?” 

“ It’s one of the group that used to be called 
the Duke of Cumberland’s Islands,” the boy 
answered, faintly, yet overflowing with eager- 
ness. “ They lie just beyond the Ellice Archi- 
pelago, nearly on the line of a hundred and 
eighty, as you go towards the Union Group 
along the parallel of — ” 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 


45 


“Now, my dear boy,” I said, “if you run on 
like that, as I said before, I shall have to turn 
you adrift again in your open boat at the mercy 
of the ocean. Do be quiet, won’t you, and let 
me look up your island ? ” 

“We can’t be quiet,” Master John Knox put 
in, eagerly, “ when we know they’re going to 
murder our father and mother and Calvin and 
Miriam, on Wednesday morning.” 

“Just you hold your tongue, sir,” I said, push- 
ing him down again on his bunk, “and wait 
till you’re spoken to. Now, not another word, 
either of you, till I’ve consulted my chart. Jim, 
hand down the Admiralty sheets again, there’s 
a good fellow, will you ? ” 

Jim handed them down, and we commenced 
our scrutiny at once. 

We soon found the Duke of Cumberland’s 
Islands, and, as good luck would have it, found 
we were steering as straight as an arrow for 
them. The direction of the wind had not 
misled us. But still no such place as Tanaki 
could we find anywhere. 

“ It used to be called ‘ The Long Reef,’ ” 


4 6 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

Martin said, looking up; “but now we call it 
by the native name, Tanaki.” 

“ Oh, the Long Reef ! ” I said ; “ why didn’t 
you say so at first ? I know that well enough 
by sight on the chart; but I never heard it 
called Tanaki before. That accounts, of course, 
for the milk in the cocoanut. Jim, hand along 
the calipers here, and let’s measure out the 
course. Two — four — six — eight,” I went on, 
looping along line of sailing with the calipers. 
“ A trifle short of eight hundred miles. Say 
seven hundred and eighty. And we’ve till 
Wednesday morning. Well, we ought to do 
it.” 

“You’ll be in time to save them, then!” the 
elder boy cried, jumping up once more, like a 
Jack-in-the-box. “You’ll be in time to save 
them ! ” 

“ Will you be quiet, if you please ? ” I said, 
poking him down again flat, and holding my 
hand on his mouth. “ Oh, yes ! I expect we’ll 
be in time to save them. If only you’ll let us 
alone, and not make such a noise. We can do 
nine knots an hour easy, under all steam; and 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 


47 


that ought to bring us up to Tanaki, as you call 
it, by Wednesday morning in the very small 
hours. Let’s see, we’ve got four clear days to 
do it in.” 

“ Five,” the boy answered. “ Five. To-day’s 
Friday.” 

“ No, no,” I replied, curtly. “ Will you please 
shut up ? Especially when you only darken 
counsel with many words. You’re out of your 
reckoning. To-day’s Saturday, I tell you.” And, 
in point of fact, indeed, it really was Saturday. 

“ No, it’s Friday,” Martin went on, with ex- 
traordinary persistence. 

“ Saturday,” I repeated. “ Knife ; scissors ; 
knife ; scissors.” 

“ But we got away from Tanaki eight days 
ago,” the boy declared, strongly, with a very 
earnest face ; “ and it was Thursday when we 
left. I kept count of the days and nights all 
that awful time we were tossing about on the 
ocean alone, and I’m sure I’m right. To-day’s 
Friday.” 

“Jim,” I said, turning to my brother, “what 
day of the week do you make it ? ” 


48 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

“Why, Saturday, of course,” Jim answered, 
with confidence. 

I went to the bottom of the companion-ladder , 
and called out aloud, where the boy could hear 
me, “ Tom Blake, what day of the week and 
month is it ? ” 

“ Saturday the sixth, sir,” Tom called out, 
promptly. 

“ There, my boy,” I said, turning to him, 
“you see you’re mistaken. You’ve lost count 
of the time in this awful journey of yours. I 
expect you were half unconscious the last day 
and night. But, good heavens, Jim, just to 
think of what they’ve done ! They’ve been out 
nine days and nights in an open boat, almost 
without food or drink, and they’ve come all 
that incredible distance before the high wind. 
Except with a ripping good breeze behind them, 
they could never have done it.” 

“ For my part,” said Jim, looking up from his 
chart, “ I can hardly understand how they ever 
did it at all. I declare, I call it nothing short 
of a miracle ! ” 

And so, indeed, it was ; for it seemed as though 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 


49 


the wind had drifted them straight ahead, from 
the moment they started, in the exact direction 
where the Albatross was to meet them. 

I’m an old seafaring hand by this time, and I 
may be superstitious, but I see the finger of fate 
in such a coincidence as that one. 


CHAPTER IV. 


martin luther’s story. 

For the next two days we went steaming 
ahead as hard as we could go in a bee-line to 
the northeastward, in the direction of the Duke 
of Cumberland’s Islands ; but it was two days 
clear before those unfortunate boys, Jack and 
Martin, — for that was what they called one an- 
other, for short, in spite of their severely theo- 
logical second names, — were in a condition to 
tell us exactly what had happened, without 
danger to their shattered nerves and impaired 
digestions. 

When they did manage to speak, — both at 
once, for choice, in their eagerness to get their 
story out, — here’s about what their history came 
to, as we pieced it together, bit by bit, from the 
things they told us at different times. If I were 
one of those writing chaps, now, that know how 
to tell a whole ten years’ history, end on end, 
5 ° 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY. 


51 


exactly as it happened, without missing a detail, 
I’d get it all out for you, just as Martin told us ; 
or, better still, I’d give it to you in a single con- 
nected piece, between inverted commas, as his 
own words, beginning, “ I was born,” said he, 
“ in the city of Edinburgh,” and so forth, after the 
regular, high-and-dry literary fashion. But how 
on earth those clever book-making fellows can 
ever remember a whole long speech, word for 
word, from beginning to end, I never could 
make out, and never shall, neither. What mem- 
ories they must have to do it, to be sure ! It’s 
my own belief they make it up, more than 
half out of their own heads, as they go along, 
and are perfectly happy if it only just sounds 
plausible. But anyhow, Martin Luther Mac- 
glashin didn’t tell us all his story at a single 
time, or in a connected way ; he gave us a bit 
now, and a bit again, with additions from Jack, 
according as he was able. So being, as I say, 
no more than a free-and-easy master mariner 
myself, without skill in literature, I’m not going 
to try to repeat it all, word for word, to you, pre- 
cisely as it came, but shall just take the liberty 


52 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

of spinning my yarn my own way, and letting 
you have, in short, the gist and substance of 
what we gradually got out of our two fugitives. 

Well, it seems that Jack and Martin’s father 
was, just as I suspected, a Scotch missionary on 
the Island of Tanaki. He lived there with an- 
other family of missionaries of the same sect, 
in peace and quiet, as well as with an English 
merchant of the name of Williams, who traded 
with the natives for calico, knives, glass beads, 
and tobacco. For a long time things had gone 
on pretty comfortably in the little settlement; 
though, to be sure, the natives did sometimes 
steal Mr. Macglashin’s fowls, or threaten to tie 
Mr. Williams to a cocoanut palm and take cock- 
shots at him with a Snider, out of pure lightness 
of heart, unless he gave them rum, square gin, 
or brandy. Still, in spite of these playful little 
eccentricities of the good-humored Kanakas, 
who will have their joke, murder or no murder, 
all went as merrily as a wedding bell (as they say 
in novels), till suddenly one morning a French 
labor-vessel — I suspect the very one we had 
intercepted in the act of trying to carry off 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY. 


53 


Nassaline — put into the harbor in search of 
“ apprentices.” 

She was a very bad lot, from what the boys 
told us ; a genuine slaver of the worst type ; and 
she stirred up a deal of mischief at Makilolo. 

On the shore, the chief of Tanaki was drawn 
up to receive them, with all his warriors, taste- 
fully but inexpensively rigged out in a string of 
blue beads round the neck, an anklet of shells, 
and a head-dress of a single large yellow feather. 

“ Who are you ? ” shouts the chief, at the top 
of his voice. “ You man a oui-oui? ” 

“ Yes,” the Frenchman shouts back, in his 
pigeon-English. “ Me de commander of dis 
French ship. Want to buy boys. Must sell 
them to us. Tanaki French island. Discov- 
ered by Bougainville.” 

“ No, no,” says the chief, in pigeon-English, 
again. “ Tanaki no belong a man a oui-oui , 
Tanaki belong a Queenie England. Capitaney 
Cook find him long time back. My father little 
fellow then ; him see Capitaney, him tell me 
often. Capitaney Cook no man a oui-oui ; him 
fellow English.” 


54 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


The other natives joined in at once with their 
loud cry, “ Chief speak true. Tanaki belong a 
Queenie England. Tanaki no belong a man a 
oui-oui. If man a oui-oui want to take Tanaki, 
man a Tanaki come out and fight him.” And 
they threw themselves at once into a threaten- 
ing attitude. 

“ Have you got any Englishmen here ? ” the 
French skipper called out, to make sure of his 
ground. 

“Yes,” says the missionary, — our boys’ father, 
— standing out from the crowd. “Three Eng- 
lish families here. Settled on the island. And 
we deny that this group belongs to the French 
Republic.” 

At that, the Frenchman pulled back a bit. 
When he saw there was likely to be opposition, 
and that his proceedings were watched by three 
English families, he drew in his horns a little. 
He knew if he interfered too openly with the 
missionaries’ proceedings, an English gunboat 
might come along, sooner or later, and over- 
haul him for fomenting discord on an island 
known to be under the British protectorate. 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY. 55 

So he only answered, in French, “ Well, were 
peaceable traders, monsieur. We don’t want to 
interfere with the British Government. Consider 
us friends. All we desire is to hire laborers.” 
And he landed his boat’s crew before the very 
face of Macglashin and the Tanaki warriors. 

At first, as often happens in these islands, 
the natives were very little disposed to trade 
with the strangers in boys or women, for they 
were afraid of the Frenchmen ; and Macglashin 
and the other missionary did all they knew to 
prevent the newcomers from carrying off any 
of the -islanders into practical slavery. But after 
awhile the Frenchmen produced their regulation 
bottles of square gin (that’s what they call Hol- 
lands in the South Pacific), and began to treat 
the chief and the other savages to drinks all 
round, as much as you liked, with nothing to 
pay for it. In a very short time, the chief had 
got so much liquor aboard that his legs wouldn’t 
answer the rudder any longer, and he began to 
reel about like a perfect madman. Most of the 
other full-grown men natives followed suit, before 
long, and lay down on the beach half dead with 


5 6 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

drunkenness. Perhaps the liquor was drugged ; 
perhaps it wasn’t ; but anyhow, in spite of all the 
missionaries could do, the shore, before nightfall, 
was in a condition of the wildest and most bestial 
orgies. The men, in what the newspapers call 
“ a high state of vinous exhilaration*” were ready 
to sell their boys and girls, or anything else on 
earth, for a little more gin ; and as the mis- 
sionaries were naturally helpless to prevent it, 
the Frenchman was soon driving a roaring 
trade in flesh and blood against the drunken 
savages. 

The businesslike way they went to work, 
Jack and Martin told us, was horribly disgust- 
ing. The women, indeed, they tried to wheedle 
and cajole, — “ You like go along a New Caledo- 
nia along a me ? Only three yam times ; then 
ship bring you back again. Very good feed; 
plenty nyam-nyam. Pay very good. Pay money. 
Lots of shop. You buy what you like: you 
buy red dress, red handkerchief, beads like-a- 
chiefie. No fight ; no beat ; no swear at you. 
You good girl; I good fellow master.” But if 
they couldn’t induce them, by fair words and 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY. 57 

promises and little presents of cheap French 
finery, to put their mark to their sham inden- 
tures, then they just knocked them down with a 
blow on the head, dragged them by their hair 
to the boats hard by, and got their fathers or 
husbands to put their marks, and receive a few 
dollars and some red cloth in payment. 

As for the boys, they handled them like so 
many animals in a market. “Turn round, cochon ! 
Show me your face ! Mille tonnerres , let me see 
how you can run, you dirty young blackguard ! ” 
They examined them as a veterinary would ex- 
amine a horse. “ Why, there was our little fellow, 
Nangaree,” Jack said to us, with deep concern, 
“Nangaree, that used to clean up things for 
mother at the mission house : his father sold him 
for twenty dollars. The captain looked at his 
legs, and at the glands in his throat, to see if he’d 
had the chicken-pox and the measles. Then he 
said to his mate, ‘ Thi$ lot’s cheap enough. He’s 
a first-rate lad, and ban speak English. He’ll 
do for the hold. Bundle him along ’ And the 
mate caught him up by the scruff of his neck 
and .hauled him to the boats, kicking and 


58 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

screaming; and that was the last we saw of 
poor Nangaree ! ” 

For three days and nights, it seems, this hor- 
rible inhuman market or slave-fair went on upon 
the beach, the Frenchmen taking care to keep 
the natives well primed with spirits all the time, 
till they’d got their hold full, and were prepared 
to sail away again with their living cargo. Then 
at last they upped anchor, and out of the harbor. 
But before they went, the skipper, it appears, who 
was angry at the missionaries for having inter- 
fered with him, and was afraid they might report 
his proceedings to the British Government when 
next the mission ship came that way on her pro- 
visioning rounds, took aside the chief in a confi- 
dential chat, and tried to inflame his mind, all 
mad drunk that he was, against the English resi- 
dents. Apparently he had made so good a three 
days’ work of it with his horrible trade, and found 
it so convenient to draw his supplies from this re- 
mote and almost unvisited island, that he thought 
it would be nice if, before his next visit, he could 
get rid altogether of these meddlesome strangers. 
He didn’t want any European witnesses to crop 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY \ 


59 


up against him in future; so he told the chief, 
with a great show of confidence, that Macglashin 
and his friends were not English at all, but 
Scotch ; and he pointed out that it was uncom- 
fortable for the natives to be interfered with in 
their trading operations by a set of white-livered 
curs who objected to the selling of boys and girls 
into temporary slavery. Surely a chief had a 
right to do as he would with his own subjects ! 
What else he said, heaven knows ; but this is 
what happened as soon as the French, with their 
horrid cargo, had got well clear of the unhappy 
island. 

That very afternoon, the chief, beginning to 
get sober again, but quarrelsome from headache 
and the other after-effects of a long debauch, 
came round to the mission house in a towering 
rage, and asked the unsuspecting missionary, 
“ Say, white man, are you a Scotchman ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Macglashin, not knowing what was 
coming, “ I’m a Scotchman, chief, certainly. I 
was born in Scotland.” 

The chief laughed loud. “ Ha, ha,” he said, 
“ then Queenie England no take care a you. No 


6o 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


send gunboat to shoot us all dead, if man a Ta- 
naki come up and kill you.” 

At that Macglashin grew alarmed, and an- 
swered, “Oh, yes! The Queen of England would 
certainly avenge us.” And he tried to explain 
the exact relation in which Scotchmen stood to 
the British crown, — that they were just as much 
British subjects as Englishmen, entitled to pre- 
cisely the same amount of protection. But the 
chief couldn’t be made to understand. The 
French skipper had evidently poisoned his mind 
against them. “ Man a Tanaki don’t want no 
Scotchman interfere with chief when him go to 
sell him boy and him woman,” the savage said, 
angrily. “ Tanaki belong a Queenie England. 
Queenie England no want Scotchman interfere 
with' people in Tanaki. Scotchman better keep 
quiet in him house. Queenie England no mind 
Scotchman.” 

And no amount of reasoning produced any 
effect upon him. 

The missionaries went to bed that evening 
with many misgivings. They felt that, for the 
first time, so far as the natives were concerned, 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY, \ 6 1 

the powerful protection of the British flag was 
now practically withdrawn from them. They 
were alone, as strangers, among those excited 
black fellows. 

At dead of night, while the two boys slept, a 
horrible din outside the mission house awoke 
them. They looked out, and saw the red glare of 
torches outside. A frightful horde of Kanakas, 
naked save for their war-paint, drunk with the 
Frenchman’s rum and armed with his Sniders, 
surrounded the frail building in a hideous mob 
of savagery. As Martin put his head out of the 
lattice a bullet came whizzing past. He with- 
drew it for a moment, terrified, and then looked 
out again. As he did so the other Scotch mis- 
sionary appeared upon the veranda, half dressed, 
and, holding up his hand in dignified remon- 
strance, began in Kanaka with his gentle, mild 
voice, “ My friends, my dear friends — ” Before 
he could get any further, the chief stepped for- 
ward, and, aiming a blow at his gray locks with a 
sacred native tomahawk, felled the peaceful old 
teacher senseless to the ground. Martin shud- 
dered with horror. The old man lay weltering 


62 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


in a pool of his red, gushing gore, while the 
savages danced in triumph over his prostrate 
body, or smeared themselves with great lines 
and circles of his warm heart-blood. 

“ Come on ! ” the chief cried in Kanaka. 
“ Kill all ! Kill every one ! They’re taboo to 
our gods. Don’t fear their gunboats. Queenie 
England won’t trouble to protect a Scotch- 
man.” 

Then began a hideous orgy of wild lust and 
slaughter. The savages rushed on, drunk with 
blood and rum, and dragged out the wife and 
children of the other missionary, whom they 
brained upon the spot, before the terrified eyes 
of the trembling Macglashins. The trader Wil- 
liams ran up, just then, with his revolver in his 
hand, followed by two faithful black servants 
from a neighboring island ; but the French skip- 
per had been cunning enough there, too. “ Him 
a Welshman ! ” the savages cried. “ Queenie 
England no care for him ! ” For indeed he 
happened to be born in Wales. And they shot 
him down as he came, before he could open fire 
upon them. Then they turned to massacre the 


MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY. 63 

Macglashins, the only remaining Europeans on 
the island. 

But just at that moment a sudden idea seemed 
to strike the chief. He cried out, “ Stop ! ” The 
savages fell back, and listened with eagerness to 
what was coming. Then the chief shouted out 
again in Kanaka : “ I have a thought. The 
gods have sent it to me. This is my thought. 
We have killed enough for to-night. Let us 
catch them alive and bind them. Next moon is 
the great feast of my father Taranaka. I have 
an idea — a divine idea. Let us keep them till 
that day, arid then, in honor of the gods, let us 
roast them and eat them.” 

The whole assembly answered, with a wild 
shout of delighted assent, “ Taranaka ! Tara- 
naka ! Our great dead chief ! In honor of 
Taranaka, let us roast them and eat them.” 

So they rushed wildly on upon the defenceless 
white family, bound them in rude cords of native 
make, and carried them off in triumph to Tara- 
naka’s temple tomb in the palm grove. 

And that was as much as we could allow the 
boys to tell us, at a time, of their strange adven- 


6 4 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

tures. We were afraid of overtaxing their 
strength at first, and tried to confine their at- 
tention as much as possible to tinned meats, and 
sea-biscuit soaked in condensed milk; though 
I’m bound to admit that as soon as they began 
to recover appetite a bit, they addressed them- 
selves steadily and seriously to their food, with 
true British pluck and perseverance. In spite 
of the terrors from which they had just escaped, 
they did the fullest justice to Serang-Palo’s 
cookery. 


CHAPTER V. 


A BREAK-DOWN. 

Time went on, and the boys began to grow 
visibly fatter. It was Tuesday evening, and we 
hoped, putting on all steam as we were doing, 
to reach Tanaki by the small hours of Wednes- 
day morning, in good season to relieve the four 
unhappy souls still, as we believed, detained 
there in captivity. We were strained on the 
very rack of excitement, indeed, with our efforts 
to arrive before the savages could take any 
further step ; and the boys’ anxiety for their 
parents’ and their sister’s safety had naturally 
communicated itself to us, as we listened to 
their story. Why, it was that very evening that 
Martin had told us the rest of his strange tale, 
— how his father and mother, with his younger 
brother Calvin and his sister Miriam, had been 
confined by the savages in the grass-hut temple, 
65 


66 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


while he and Jack were put to lie in an open 
outhouse hard by, guarded only by a single 
half-intoxicated Kanaka. Well, in the middle 
of the night, those two brave boys had silently 
gnawed their ropes asunder, and, creeping past 
their guard, had stolen away to the beach in the 
desperate effort to escape in search of assistance. 
There they luckily found the mission boat 
hauled down on the shore ; and waiting only to 
take a can of water from the spring close by, 
and a bunch of half-ripe bananas from a garden 
on the harbor, they had put forth alone on their 
wild and adventurous voyage across the lone 
Pacific. I can tell you, it brought the tears to 
our eyes more than once, rough sailors as we 
were, to hear the strange story of their hope- 
less sail; and it made our blood boil to learn 
how these ungrateful savages had repaid the 
earnest and devoted life-labor of the unhappy 
missionaries. 

“ No wonder him hungry,” that young monkey 
Nassaline said, with profound condolence, “ if 
him don’t hab nufiin to eat for ten day long but 
unripe banana.” Anything that concerned the 


A BREAK- DOWN. 


6 7 

human stomach always touched a most tender 
and responsive chord in Nassaline’s sympathies. 

At eight bells, when my watch was up, I went 
off for a quiet snooze to my cabin. I knew I 
should be wanted for hot work about three in 
the morning, for I didn’t expect to effect the 
rescue without a hard fight for it ; so I thought 
it best to get what sleep I could before arriving 
at the islands. So I lay in my berth, with my 
eyes shut, and a thin sheet spread over me (for 
it was broiling hot tropical weather), and I was 
just beginning to doze off in comfort, when sud- 
denly I felt something move under me like a 
young earthquake. Next minute I was jolted 
clean out of my bed, with such a jerk that I 
thought at first we were all going to sleep on 
the bed of the ocean. 

“ Halloo,” I cried out to Jim, up atop, rushing 
out of my cabin. “ What’s up ? Anything 
wrong ? What’s happened ? ” 

“Grazed a reef, I guess,” Jim shouted back, 
calmly. “No land in sight, but shoal water 
and breakers ahead. We seem to be in 
danger.” 


68 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


Cool chap, Jim, under no matter what circum- 
stances. But this looked serious. In a second 
I was up, and peering out over the bows into 
the dark, black water. The Albatross had 
slowed, and was reversing engines. All round 
us we could see great heaving breakers. 

“ No land hereabouts,” Jim sung out, con- 
sulting the chart once more. “We ought to be 
at least five miles to suth’ard of the Great 
Caycos Band Reef.” 

As he spoke, I saw Martin’s white face ap- 
pearing suddenly at the top of the companion- 
ladder. He flung up his hands in an agony of 
despair. “ Oh, how terrible ! ” the poor lad 
blurted out in his misery. “ I ought to have 
remembered ! I ought to have told you ! Father 
says the charts hereabouts are all many miles 
wrong in their bearings. The Caycos Reef lies 
six or seven knots south by west of the point it’s 
marked at ! ” 

In a ferment of anxiety I turned up our 
other Sydney charts at once to test his state- 
ment. Sure enough, there was a discrepancy, 
a considerable discrepancy, both in latitude and 


A BREAK-DOWN. 


6 9 


longitude, between the two maps. At the mar- 
gin of one I read this vague and uncomfortable 
note : “ These islands are reported by certain 
navigators to lie further south and west than 
here laid down, and have never been accurately 
surveyed by good authorities. Careful naviga- 
tion by day alone is recommended to master 
mariners.” 

Jim looked at me, and I looked at Jim. 
What on earth could we do in such a fix as 
this? To go on in the dark, with unknown 
reefs before us, was to imperil the Albatross 
and all on board ; to cast anchor where we 
stood and hold back till daylight was to risk 
not arriving in time to rescue the unfortunate 
missionary with his wife and family. I glanced 
at the boy’s white face as he stood by the com- 
panion-ladder, and made up my mind at once. 
Come what might, I must push forward and 
save them. 

“ Slow engines,” I called down the pipe, “ and 
proceed half speed till further orders. Jim, go 
for’ard, and keep a sharp eye on the breakers. 
As soon as we’re clear, we’ll steam ahead, full 


70 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


pelt again, and risk going ashore sooner than 
leave these poor folks on the island to be cruelly 
massacred.” 

“ Thank you,” the boy said, with an ashy 
face, and lay down upon the deck, unmanned 
and trembling. His lips were as white, I give 
you my word, as this sheet of paper I’m this 
moment writing upon. 

For a hundred yards or so we slowed, and 
went ahead without coming to any further stop ; 
then, suddenly, a sharp thud, — a dull sound of 
grating, — a thrill through the ship; and Jim, 
looking up from in front, with a cool face as 
usual, called out at the top of his voice, but 
with considerable annoyance, “ Well, now, we’re 
aground again ! ” 

And so we were, this time with a vengeance. 

“ Back her,” I called out, “ back her hard, 
Jenkins!” and they backed her as hard as the 
engines could spurt; but nothing came of it. 
We were jammed on the reef about as tight 
as a ship could stick, and no power on earth 
could ever have got us off till the tide rose 
again. 


A BREAK-DOWN. 


7 1 

Well, we tried our very hardest, reversing 
engines first, and then putting them forward 
again, to see if we could run through it by 
main force ; but it was all in vain. Aground 
we were, and aground we must remain till 
there was depth of water enough on the reef 
to float us. 

Fortunately, the tide was rising fast, and three 
hours more would see us out of our difficulties. 
Three hours was a very serious delay; but I 
calculated if we got off the reef by two in the 
morning, we should still have time to reach 
Tanaki pretty comfortably before seven. We 
must enter the harbor by daylight, no doubt, 
which would perhaps be dangerous ; because, 
when the savages saw us arrive, they might 
make haste to cut the white people’s throats 
before we could get up to rescue them. But 
I thought it more likely they would try to save 
them, to prevent our opening fire upon them by 
way of punishment; so, with what comfort we 
could, we stuck on upon the reef, and waited 
for the inevitable tide to come and float us. 

Waiting for the tide is always slow business. 


72 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

At about half -past one, however, the water 
began to deepen under the ship, and we could 
feel her rise and fall, — bump, bump, bump, — 
with each onslaught of the breakers. Now, 
bumping on a reef isn’t exactly wholesome for 
a ship’s bottom, so I gave the word to Jenkins 
for the engines to go to work again ; and pres- 
ently, after two or three unsuccessful attempts, 
we got her safe off, by energetic reversing, and 
found, to our great delight, that the Albatross , 
like a tight little craft that she was, had sprung 
no leak, and was making no water. Her sound 
old timbers had just grazed the surface of that 
flat -topped reef without suffering any serious 
internal injury. 

As soon as we were free, and had examined 
our hold, I shouted down, once more, “ Now, 
forward, boys, as hard as you can go, and mind, 
Jenkins, you make her travel!” 

To my immense surprise, instead of obeying 
my orders, the Albatross suddenly stood stock- 
still in the trough of a wave, drifting helplessly 
about like a log on the ocean. 

“ Now then,” I shouted down again, half angry 


A BREAK- DOWN. 


7 3 


and half alarmed, “ what are you doing there, 
Jenkins? Didn’t you hear what I said? Stir 
your stumps, my friend! Double time, and 
forward ! ” 

Imagine my horror when the engineer shouted 
back, in a voice of blank dismay, “ I can’t, sir. 
She won’t work. Don’t answer to the valve. 
We’ve injured something in backing her off the 
reef there.” 

This was an awkward job. And at such a 
crisis, too ! In a minute I was down in the 
engine-room myself, inspecting all the valves 
and bearings, with lamp in hand, and with the 
closest scrutiny. Before long we had ascer- 
tained the extent of the injury. A piece of 
the engine was broken that would certainly 
take us six or eight hours to repair. And it 
was already two o’clock on the Wednesday 
morning ! 

But that wasn’t all, either. Another serious 
difficulty beset us in our work. We were beat- 
ing about in the angry sea off the Caycos 
Reef, with the breakers dashing in, and the 
surf running high. If we tried to mend the 


74 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

broken engine where we stood, we should in- 
fallibly be dashed to pieces on the dangerous 
shallows. You can’t go to work like that on 
a lee shore, with no engine to fall back upon, 
and the wind blowing half a gale. The only 
thing possible for us was to hoist sail and make 
for the open sea to southward under all can- 
vas. That was taking us further away from 
Tanaki, of course; but it was our one chance 
of getting our engine repaired in peace and 
quiet. 

So we hoisted sail and stood out to sea once 
more, leaving the dim, long line of surf gradually 
behind us on the lee, and beating, by constant 
tacks, against the wind, which had now veered 
to the southeast, and was blowing us straight 
on to the Caycos shallows. 

By four o’clock we’d got so far out that we 
thought we might lie to a bit and take a few 
hands off navigating duty to assist the engineer 
in repairing his engine. 

But it proved a much more difficult and 
lengthy task to retrieve the mischief than we 
had at first sight at all anticipated. The min- 


A BREAK-DOWN-. 


7 5 


utes went by with appalling rapidity. Five 
o’clock came, and the smith was only just get- 
ting his iron well hammered into shape. Six 
o’clock, and the engineer was still fitting the 
place it came from. Seven o’clock — something 
wrong, surely, with the ship’s time ! Before this 
hour I had hoped to be anchored off the harbor 
of Tanaki. 

Seven o’clock on Wednesday morning; and 
by twelve at noon, so the boys assured us, the 
ovens would be made hot at Taranaka’s tomb 
for those unfortunate prisoners on the remote 
island ! 

Oh, how frantically we worked for the next 
two hours ! and how remorselessly everything 
seemed to turn against us! How is it that 
whenever one’s in the greatest hurry all nature 
seems to conspire to defeat one’s purpose? I 
won’t attempt to explain to you all the petty 
mishaps and unfortunate failures that attended 
our efforts. It seemed as if iron, wood, and 
coal — all inanimate matter itself — was banded 
together to make our further approach to Ta- 
naki impossible. By nine o’clock I knew the 


7 6 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

worst myself. The break-down to the engine 
was far more serious than we had at first im- 
agined. I felt sure that before noon, at earliest, 
with all our skill and toil, we couldn’t possibly 
repair it. 

But I shrank from telling those two poor 
trembling lads that there was no hope now left 
of saving their parents. 

Gradually, however, as the day wore on, they 
discovered it themselves, — they saw that the 
golden opportunity had been lost for us. As 
each hour passed by they told us, with ever 
redoubled horror, what they knew must at that 
moment be passing on the island. Now the 
savages would be bringing their father out be- 
fore the prison hut, and sacrificing him with 
their tomahawks by the hideous blood-stained 
altar of their great dead chieftain. Now their 
poor mother would be crouching on the ground, 
trying in vain to • protect their helpless little 
brother. Now Miriam herself, little golden- 
haired, three-year- old, innocent Miriam — but 
at that last horror they broke down in tears, 
and could say no more. They could only sob, 


A BREAK-DOWN. 


77 


and hide their faces in their hands with speech- 
less agony at that unspeakable picture. 

By noon we knew the worst must be over. 
They were at rest now, poor souls, from their 
month-long misery. The afternoon dragged on, 
and we worked hard still, on the mere chance 
of some respite which might enable us to rescue 
them. But we felt sure the end had come, for 
all that. We worked away by the mere force 
of pure aimless energy. It distracted us from 
thinking of the awful events which we never- 
theless in our hearts felt certain must have 
happened. 

It was eight at night before we got the Alba- 
tross fairly under weigh again ; and even then 
she lumbered slowly, slowly on, the engine be- 
ing only somehow repaired, in the most clumsy 
fashion, till we could reach harbor once more, 
and quietly overhaul her. 

So we steamed ahead, feebly and cautiously, 
all night long, keeping a sharp lookout for land 
across our bows, and with Martin on deck al- 
most all the time, to aid us by his close personal 
knowledge of the island approaches. 


78 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


Wednesday the tenth was over now. The 
terrible day had come and gone. We didn’t 
doubt that the massacre was completed long 
before the clock struck one on Thursday 
morning. 


CHAPTER VI. 


ON THE ISLAND. 

At Tanaki, meanwhile, as we afterwards 
learned by inquiry among the islanders, things 
had been going on with the unhappy mission- 
ary very much as our worst fears had led us 
to expect. Though I wasn’t there at the time 
to see for myself, I got to know what happened 
a little later almost as well as if I’d been on the 
spot ; so I shall take the liberty once more — 
not being one of these book-making chaps — of 
telling my story my own way, and explaining 
how matters went, in rough sailor fashion, with- 
out trying to let you know in detail how we 
found it all out till I come to explain the up- 
shot of our present adventures. 

Well, on the night when Martin and Jack 
stole away from the hut and got clear off on 
their venturesome journey in the mission boat, 
their father and mother, with little Calvin, who 


79 


8o 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


was eight years old, and Miriam, who was a 
pretty wee lassie of three, were heavily guarded 
by half a dozen desperate and drunken savages 
in the temple tomb of the deceased Taranaka. 
It was a thatched native grass-house, with a 
bare mud floor, and a rough altar-slab raised 
high on the threshold, which covered the re- 
mains of the bloodthirsty old chieftain, — the 
man who in his early youth had seen “ Capi- 
taney Cook,” when he discovered the islands. 
The Melanesian natives, I ought to tell you, 
regard their dead ancestors as a sort of gods 
or guardian spirits, and frequently offer up 
food and drink at their graves as presents to 
appease them. Every morning, gifts of taro, 
breadfruit, and plantain were laid on the altar 
by Taranakas tomb; and once every ten days 
a little square gin, mixed with cocoa-milk, was 
poured out upon the rude slab of unsculptured 
stone, that the dead chiefs ghost might come to 
drink of it, and be satisfied. Wednesday the 
tenth was the anniversary of Taranaka’s death 
(he had been killed in a fight with some neigh- 
boring islanders, who fell out with him over the 


ON THE ISLAND. 


8l 


wreck of an American whaling vessel), and it 
was on that festival day that the chief proposed 
offering up the blood of our fellow countrymen 
as an expiation to the shades of his departed 
relative. 

Macglashin and his wife never even knew that 
the boys had escaped. If they had, those long 
days of suspense might have been even worse for 
them. They might have been looking forward 
with mad hope to some miracle of rescue, such 
as that which the Albatross had so boldly 
planned, and which had been so cruelly inter- 
fered with by the break-down of our machinery. 
As it was, the savages carefully kept from them 
all knowledge of their boys’ escape. They never 
even breathed a hint of that desperate voyage. 
Every day, on the contrary, when they brought 
the unhappy missionary and his wife their daily 
rations of yam and banana, they taunted them 
with threats of what tortures the chief had still 
in store for Jack and Martin. They were fatting 
them up, they said, for Taranaka to feed upon. 
On Taranaka’s day they would be offered up as 
victims on the cannibal altar. 


82 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


But the most terrible part of all the poor 
father’s and mother’s sufferings was the fact that 
they couldn’t keep the knowledge of that awful 
fate in store for them even from Calvin and 
pretty little Miriam. Macglashin’s diary, which 
I read later on, was just heartrending about the 
children. Those helpless mites cowered all day 
long on the bare mud floor of that hideous 
temple, awaiting the horrible doom that the 
savages held out before them with the painful 
resignation of innocent childhood. They were 
too frightened to cry over it; too frightened to 
talk of it ; they only crouched, pale and terrified, 
by their mother’s side, and dragged out the long 
day in horrible apprehensions. They knew they 
must die, and they sat there, watching for that 
inevitable sentence to be carried out, with the 
stoical fortitude of utter childish helplessness. 
Well, there, — I’m an old hand on the sea, you 
know, and I don’t mind the dangers of the wind 
and waves for grown men and boys, that can 
look after themselves, any more than most of 
you land-folks mind dodging about in the 
Strand at Charing Cross on a crowded after- 


ON THE ISLAND. 


83 


noon in the London season; but I can’t bear 
to talk, or even to think, of what those poor 
children suffered all those terrible days in the 
heathen tomb-house. There are things that 
make a man’s blood run cold to speak about. 
That makes mine run cold; I can’t dwell on 
it any longer; it’s too ghastly to realize. 

So there, — the days went by, one after an- 
other; and Monday the eighth came, and Tues- 
day the ninth, and still no chance of escape or 
rescue. Up to the last moment, Macglashin 
hoped (as he says in the diary) that some miracle 
might occur to set them free, some interposition 
of Providence on their behalf to prevent the last 
misfortune from overtaking his poor, pallid little 
Miriam. Perhaps the mission ship, that went 
her rounds twice a year, might happen to put 
in, out of due season, with some special mes- 
sage, or under stress of weather; or perhaps 
some whaling vessel or some English gunboat 
might arrive in the nick of time in the little 
harbor of Tanaki. But when Tuesday evening 
came, and no help had arrived, the unhappy 
man’s heart sank within him. He gave up that 


84 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

last wild hope of a rescue at the eleventh hour, 
and addressed himself to die with what courage 
he could muster. 

Ah, yes, to die oneself is all easy enough ; 
nobody worth his salt minds that; but to see 
one’s wife and children murdered before one’s 
eyes, — there, I’m a rough sort of sailor-body, 
as I said before, but you must excuse my break- 
ing off. I haven’t got the strength to hold my 
pen and write about it. Why, I’ve a boy of 
my own at school at Sydney, and my Mary’s in 
England, bless her little heart! at a lady’s col- 
lege, they call it nowadays ; and I know what it 
means; I know what it means, gentlemen. I’d 
no more expose those two dear children in the 
places I’ve been among the islands myself, than 
— well, than I’d send them to sea alone in a 
cockboat. And my heart just bleeds for that 
poor father at Tanaki, when I read his diary 
over again, though I haven’t got the skill to 
put it all down in words at full length, as one of 
those fellows would do that write for the news- 
papers. 

However, on Tuesday night, neither Mac- 


ON THE ISLAND. 


85 


glashin himself nor Mrs. Macglashin could get 
a wink of sleep, as you may easily imagine. 
They sat up in the temple, with their backs 
against the wall, and relays of black fellows, 
armed with Sniders, and smeared with red paint, 
watching them closely all the while, to see they 
didn’t escape, or try to do away with themselves. 
But Calvin fell asleep, out of pure fatigue, on 
his mother’s lap, and Miriam, poor little soul, 
lay against her father’s shoulder, dozing as 
peacefully as ever she dozed in her own small 
cot at the mission house, where she was born. 
Once the thought came into her father’s mind, 
oughtn’t he to twist his handkerchief round her 
soft little throat, as she lay there all unconscious 
in his circling arms, to save her from the tender 
mercies of those cruel black savages? How 
could he tell what torments they might inflict 
upon her? Wasn’t it better she should be 
spared all that horror of fear? Wasn’t it bet- 
ter she should just sleep away her dear little 
life without ever knowing it, till she woke, next 
morning, in a happier and a brighter country ? 
But in another minute his heart recoiled from 


86 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


the terrible thought. While there was still one 
chance of safety he must let things take their 
course. Perhaps even those black monsters 
might have pity at the last on that one ewe 
lamb. Perhaps they might spare his Miriam’s 
life, and make her over to the mission ship, when 
it next arrived on its rounds at the island. 

All that night long the savages, for their part, 
were holding a sing-sing , as they call it, close by, 
and the hideous noise of their heathenish revels 
could be distinctly heard by the watchers in the 
temple. They danced to the music of their 
hollow drums, while the shells upon their ankles 
resounded in unison. At times the echo of hor- 
rible laughter fell harsh upon the ear. The 
natives, covered with red feathers and smeared 
with blood, were keeping high festival, as is their 
horrid custom. And as the long hours wore 
away, the din of their revelry became more wild 
in their orgies each moment. 

Morning dawned at last, — the morning of 
Wednesday the tenth, when that awful deed of 
bloodshed was to be done before the open eye 
of heaven ; and with the first streak of light the 


ON THE ISLAND. 


87 


poor children awoke and gazed round them 
blankly at their temple prison. The black 
watchers brought them yam and mammee- 
apples once more, but they couldn’t eat; they 
sat bewildered and mute, with their hands 
clasped in their parents’ palms, waiting for the 
end, and too dazed and terrified, almost, to know 
what was passing. 

About six o’clock the chief came down to 
the temple, with bloodshot eyes and tottering 
feet, attended by half a dozen naked black fob 
lowers. They had all been drinking, the greater 
part of the night, at the sing-sing , for the French- 
men had left plenty of square gin behind ; and 
they rollicked in the cruel good-humor of the 
born savage. 

“ How do, Macglashin ? ” the chief inquired 
with a hateful leer. “ How do, white woman ? 
Taranaka day come at last. How you like him 
this morning? What for you no tell man a 
Tanaki sooner you don’t know Englishman? 
Ha! ha! dat true; so him see. Queenie Eng- 
land no care for Scotchman.” 

“ If you dare to touch a hair of our heads,” 


88 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


Macglashin cried in his despair, rising up and 
facing the savage, angrily, “ sooner or later, I tell 
you, the Queen of England will hear of it, and 
she’ll send a gunboat to punish you for our 
death, and her sailors’ll shoot you all down for 
your part in this murder.” 

The chief laughed, — a wild, horrible, bar- 
baric laugh. “Ha! ha!” he answered. “ Dat 
all very fine for try frighten me. But man a 
oui-oui tell me you no true Englishman. You 
speakee English, but you Scotchman born. All 
samee American. Queenie England no care for 
American, no care for Scotch ; no send her gun- 
boat for look after Scotchman. Man a Tanaki 
go for eat you to-day, for do honor to ghost a 
Taranaka.” 

Macglashin saw that words would produce no 
effect upon the tipsy and excited wretch ; he 
must make up his mind for the worst. There 
was no help for it. 

“ At least,” he cried, “ chief, you’ll let us 
say good-by to our boys before we die? You’ll 
bring them in for their mother and me to take 
our last farewell of them ? ” 



“ ‘ COME OUT, MACGLASHIN ! ’ SAID THE CHIEF, MOCKINGLY.” 






































‘ 









& . ■ 






ON THE ISLAND. 89 

The chief shook his head and made a hideous 
grimace. “No say good-by to boys,” he said, 
with horrible glee. “ Man a Tanaki kill pig all 
night; kill Scotchman in morning. Kill baby 
first ; then boy ; then mother. Last of all, kill 
you yourself, Macglashin. Taranaka very much 
love white man’s blood. Great day to-day for 
feast for Taranaka.” And he went off again, 
grinning in hideous buffoonery, while Mac- 
glashin’s soul seethed in speechless indignation. 

For half an hour more they were left undis- 
turbed. Then the chief appeared at the door 
once more, and, beckoning with his long black 
forefinger, called to the missionary: 

“ Come out, Macglashin ! ” 

The unhappy man strode out, with little 
Miriam, half fainting, in his arms. 

“ Come out, white woman ! ” the savage cried 
once more. 

The pale mother, almost unable to totter with 
terror, made her way to the door, with Calvin’s 
fingers intertwined in her own. 

“ Now, white people, we going to shoot you,” 
the savage continued, unabashed. “You make 


90 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


too much trouble for man a Tanaki. Interfere 
too much with man who sell him boy or him 
woman. Me don’t going to kill you with axe, 
like Taranaka kill first missionary that come a 
Tanaki. Man a oui-oui sell me plenty Snider. 
Man a Tanaki want to try him shooting- 
irons. Set you up to run, and then go fire at 
you.” 

At the word he nodded, and four stalwart 
savages caught Macglashin in their arms and 
held him to a line drawn lightly in the dust by 
the chiefs stick. At the same moment four 
others caught his unhappy wife, and dragged 
her, half senseless, to the selfsame line. The 
two children were ranged by their sides, pale 
and white with terror. Then the chief walked 
forward, and drew another line some forty yards 
in front of them with his stick again. “ When 
chief call ‘go,’” he called out, “man a Tanaki 
let go missionary, and boy, and white woman. 
Missionary run till him reach dis line. Man 
a Tanaki no shoot till missionary pass dis line. 
Den man a Tanaki fire; missionary run; man 
a Tanaki run after missionary to kill him. 


ON THE ISLAND. 


91 


Whoever shoot missionary or white woman first, 
give him body up in temple to Taranaka.” 

As he spoke, the savages ranged themselves 
behind, Sniders in' hand. The chief placed 
himself in order at their head, on the right. 
Then he called out in Kanaka, “ When I give 
the word, — ‘ one, two, three,’ — loose them ! 
When I give the word, ‘ Fire! ’ off with your rifles 
at them.” 

There was a deadly pause. All was still as 
death. Then the chief cried aloud, “ One — 
two — three — loose them ! ” and the savages 
loosed the poor terrified Europeans. 

Even in that supreme moment of agony and 
doubt, however, one thought kept rising ever in 
the father’s and mother’s hearts. What had 
become of Jack and Martin? 


CHAPTER VII. 


ERRORS EXCEPTED. 

It was Thursday the eleventh, in the small 
hours of the morning. The Albatross was lum- 
bering along as best she might with her broken 
engine, and we were nearing the line of i8o°. 
We weren’t making much way, however, for the 
speed was low; and we hadn’t so much reason 
for hurrying now, for we felt almost hopeless of 
being in time to prevent the threatened massa- 
cre. Our people, we feared, had long since 
fallen victims to the superstition and blood- 
thirstiness of the ungrateful savages. 

I was asleep in my berth after the fatigues of * 
the day, and was dreaming of my dear little girl 
in England, when suddenly I felt a clammy cold 
hand laid upon my own outside the coverlet, and, 
waking with a start, I saw Martin Luther stand- 
ing pale and white in his blue shirt and trousers 


92 


ERRORS EXCEPTED. 93 

before me. I knew at once by his face some- 
thing fresh had turned up. 

“ Goodness gracious, boy ! ” I exclaimed, “ what 
on earth’s the matter now?” 

“ Captain Braithwaite,” he answered, with very 
solemn seriousness, “ I’ve been counting the days 
over and over again, and I’m quite sure there’s a 
mistake somewhere. We’ve got a day wrong in 
our reckoning, I’m certain. I’ve counted up 
each day and night a hundred times over since 
we left Tanaki in the boat, — Jack and I, — and 
I feel confident you’re twenty-four hours out in 
your reckoning. Yesterday wasn’t Wednesday 
the tenth at all. It was Tuesday the ninth, 
and we may yet reach Tanaki in time to save 
them.” 

“ No, no, my boy,” I answered, “you’re wrong; 
you’re wrong. Your natural anxiety about your 
father’s fate has upset your calculations. To- 
day’s the eleventh ; yesterday was the tenth. Till 
we get to the meridian of i8o° — ” and then, with 
a start, I broke off, suddenly. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” Martin cried, for he 
saw at once I was faltering and hesitating. “Ah, 


94 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


you see I was right now. You see this morn- 
ing’s the tenth, don’t you ? ” 

In a moment the truth flashed across me with 
a burst. I saw it all ; the only wonder was how 
on earth I had failed so long to perceive it. I 
seized the poor lad’s hand in a fervor of delight, 
relief, and exultation. 

“ Martin,” I cried, overjoyed, “ we are both of 
us right in our own way of reckoning. This 
morning’s the eleventh on board the Albatross 
here, but it’s the tenth, I don’t doubt, in your 
island at Tanaki ! ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” he cried, astonished, 
and gazing at me as if he thought me rather 
more than half mad. “ How on earth can it be 
Thursday here, while it’s Wednesday at Tanaki ?” 

“ Hold on a bit, youngster,” said I, jumping 
out of my cabin, “ till I’ve consulted the chart 
and made quite sure about it. Let me see. 
Here we are. Duke of Cumberland’s Islands, 
1 79 0 west. Hooray! Hooray!” I waved the 
chart round my head in triumph. “Jim, Jim!” 
I shouted out, rushing up the companion-ladder 
in my nightshirt as I stood ; “ here’s a hope in- 


ERRORS EXCEPTED. 


95 


deed! Here’s splendid news. Put on all steam 
at once and we may save them yet. Tanaki’s 
the other side of 180! ” 

Jim looked at me in astonishment. 

“Why, what on earth do you mean, Julian?” 
he asked. “ What on earth has that to do with 
our chance of saving them ? ” 

“ Jim,” I cried once more, hardly knowing how 
to contain myself, with excitement and reaction ; 
“ was there ever such a precious pair of fools in 
the world before as you and me, my good fellow? 
It’s Wednesday morning in Tanaki, man ! It’s 
Wednesday in Tanaki! Tanaki’s the other side 
of 180! ” 

As I said the words, Jim jumped at me like a 
wild creature and grasped my hand hard. Then 
he caught Martin in his arms and hugged him 
as tight as if he’d been his own father. After 
that, he threw his cap in the air and shouted 
aloud with delight. And when he’d quite fin- 
ished all those remarkable performances, he 
looked hard into my face and burst out laughing. 

“Well, upon my soul, Julian,” he said, “for 
a couple of seasoned old Pacific travellers, I do 


9 6 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

agree with you that a pair of bigger fools and 
stupider dolts than you and I never sailed the 
ocean ! ” 

“ If it had been our first voyage across, now,” I 
said to Jim, feeling thoroughly ashamed of my- 
self for my silly mistake, “ there might have been 
some excuse for us ! ” 

“ Or if the boy hadn’t told us there was a 
discrepancy in the accounts the very first day he 
ever came aboard,” he added, solemnly. 

“ But, as it is,” I went on, “ such a scholar’s 
mate, such a beginner’s blunder as this is for 
two seafaring men — why, it’s absolutely inex- 
cusable ! ” 

“ Absolutely inexcusable ! ” Jim repeated, peni- 
tently. 

“ But if we clap on all steam we may get there 
yet on Wednesday morning,” I continued, con- 
sulting my watch. 

“ By three or four o’clock on Wednesday 
morning,” Jim echoed, examining the chart once 
more, and carefully noting the ship’s position. 
“Why, it’s Wednesday now, Julian. We’ve 
crossed i8o°.” 


ERRORS EXCEPTED. 


97 


“ But what day was yesterday ? ” Martin asked, 
all trembling. 

“ Why, yesterday,” I answered, “ was Wednes- 
day the tenth, my boy; but to-day is Wednesday 
the tenth also. It comes twice over at this 
longitude. We’ve gained a day; that’s the long 
and the short of it. We ought to have known 
it, my brother and I, who are such old hands 
at cruising in and out of the islands; but our 
anxiety and distress made us clean forget it.” 

“ How does that come about?” Martin asked, 
bewildered, his lips white as death. 

“ Just like this,” said I. “ Sailing one way, 
you see, from England, you sail with the sun ; 
and sailing the other way, you sail against it. 
In one direction you keep gaining time, and in 
the .other you lose it. The meridian of i8o° 
is the particular place where the two modes of 
reckoning reach their climax. So, when you 
get to i8o°, sailing west, you lose a day, and 
Saturday’s followed right off by Monday. But 
sailing east, you gain a day, and have two Sun- 
days running, or whatever else the day may be 
when you happen to get there. Now, we’re 


98 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

going in the right direction for gaining a day; 
and so, though yesterday was Wednesday the 
tenth the other side of i8o°, to-day’s Wednesday 
the tenth, don’t you see, this side of it? And 
as Tanaki’s this side, your people must always 
have reckoned by the American day, so to speak, 
while we’ve reckoned all along by the Australian 
one. It’s this morning those savages threatened 
to kill your father and mother, and if we make 
a good run, we shall still perhaps be in time to 
save them.” 

As I spoke, the boy’s knees trembled under 
him with excitement. He staggered so that he 
caught at a rope for support. He was too much 
in earnest to cry, but the tears stood still in his 
eyes without falling. 

“Oh! I hope to heaven we’ll be in time 1” he 
answered. “We may save them ! We may save 
them ! ” 

I went below and turned in once more for a 
little sleep, for I knew I should be wanted later 
in the morning ; and having, fortunately, the true 
sailor’s habit in that matter of dozing off when- 
ever occasion occurred, I was soon snoring away 


ERRORS EXCEPTED . 


99 


again most comfortably on my pillow. At half- 
past three, Tom Blake came down once more to 
wake me. 

“Land in sight, sir,” he said, “on our star- 
board bow, and this young fellow Martin says 
he makes it out to be the north point of 
Tanaki.” 

In a minute I was on deck again, and peering 
at the dim land through the gray mist of morn- 
ing, — the same gray mist through which, as we 
afterwards learned, the poor creatures in the 
heathen temple saw the dawn break of the day 
that was to end their earthly troubles. It was 
Tanaki, no doubt, for Martin was quite sure he 
could recognize the headlands and the barrier 
reef. Our only question now was how next to 
proceed. We held a brief little council of war 
on deck, with Martin as our chief adviser on the 
local situation. 

From what he told us, I came rapidly to .the 
conclusion that it would be useless to attempt an 
open entrance into the little harbor of Makilolo, 
where the chief had his hut, and where the mis- 
sion people, as we believed, were still confined 


IOO 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


in the temple. To do so would only be to 
arouse the anger of the savages beforehand ; and 
unless we could get them well between a cross 
fire, and so effectually prevent any further out- 
rage, we feared they might massacre the unhappy 
people in their hands the moment we hove in 
sight to enter the harbor. But here our friend 
Martin’s local knowledge of the archipelago 
helped us out of our difficulty. He could pilot 
us, he said, to a retired bay at the back of the 
island, by the east side, where we could land a 
small party in boats, well armed with Sniders 
and our Winchester repeater; and Jack, who 
had slept all night, and was therefore the fresher 
of the two, would show us a path through the 
thick tropical underbrush, by which we could 
approach the village from the rear, while the 
Albatross ran round again with the remainder 
of the crew, and brought our brass thirty-pounder 
to bear upon the savages from the open harbor. 

This plan was at once received with universal 
approbation, and we proceeded forthwith to put 
it into execution. 

Steering cautiously round the island, under 


ERRORS EXCEPTED. 


IOI 


cover of the mist, and, fortunately, unperceived 
by the assembled natives, who were too much 
occupied with their sing-sing to be engaged in 
scanning the offing, we reached at last the little 
retired bay of which Martin had spoken, and 
got ready our boat to land our military party. 
It was ticklish work, for we could afford to 
land only ten, all told, with Jack for our guide; 
but each man was armed with a good rifle and 
ammunition, and the habit of discipline made 
our little band, we believed, more than a match 
for those untutored savages. Nassaline, also, 
joined^ the military party, while seven men were 
left as a naval reserve. Silently and cautiously 
we landed on the white sandy beach, and turned 
with Jack into the thick tangled brake of tropical 
brushwood. 

Meanwhile, my brother Jim, with Martin to 
guide him, undertook to take the Albatross 
round to the regular harbor; for Martin fortu- 
nately knew every twist and turn of those tor- 
tuous reef-channels, having been accustomed to 
navigate them from his childhood upwards, both 
in the mission boat and in the native canoes 


' 102 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


which frequently put to sea for the peche-de-mer 
fishery. 

Our plan of action, as arranged beforehand, 
was for the military party to wait about in the 
woods at the back of the village till the Albatross 
hove in sight off the mouth of the harbor. Then, 
the moment she appeared, she was to fire a 
blank shot towards the chief’s hut with her 
thirty-pounder; and, at the same moment, we of 
the surprise party were to fall upon the savages, 
and, before they could recover from their first 
surprise, demand the instant restitution of the 
missionary and his family. 

Everything depended now upon the two boys. 
If Jack failed to show us the path aright — if 
Martin drove the Albatross upon reef or rock — 
all would be up with us, and the savages would 
massacre our whole party in cold blood, as they 
proposed to do with Macglashin and his little 
ones. I trembled to think on how slender a 
thread those four precious human lives depended. 
After all, they were but lads, mere children, al- 
most, and the rash confidence of youth might 
easily deceive them. But I decided, none the 


ERRORS EXCEPTED. 


103 


less, to trust to their instincts and their keen 
affection for their friends to see us through in 
our need. If that wouldn’t lead us right, I felt 
sure in my own soul no human aid could possibly 
save the unhappy prisoners. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


HOT WORK. 

Jack led us from the beach over the white 
coral sand straight up to the wood, and, after 
looking about for awhile on every side to make 
sure of his bearings among the huge fallen logs, 
hit at last upon a faint trail that led straggling 
through the forest, — a trail scarcely worn into 
the semblance of a path by the bare feet of 
naked savages. Following his guidance, we 
plunged at once, with some doubtful misgivings, 
into the deep gloom of the woodland, and found 
ourselves immediately in a genuine equatorial 
thicket, where mouldering trunks of palms en- 
cumbered the vague path, and great rope-like 
lianas hung down in loops from the trees over- 
head, to block our way at every second step 
through that fatiguing underbrush. The day 
was warm, even as we travellers who know the 
world judge warmth in the tropical South 


104 


HOT WORK. 


105 


Pacific ; and the moist heat of that basking, 
swampy lowland, all laden with miasma from 
the decaying leaves, seemed to oppress us with 
its deadly effluvia and its enervating softness 
at every yard we went through the jungle. 
Moreover, we had to carry our arms and ammu- 
nition among that tangled brake ; and as our 
rifles kept catching continually in the creepers 
that drooped in festoons from the branches, 
while our feet got simultaneously entangled in 
the roots and trailing stems that straggled un- 
derfoot, you can easily imagine for yourself 
that ours was indeed no pleasant journey. How- 
ever, we persevered with dogged English perse- 
verance ; the sailors tramped on and wiped their 
foreheads with their sleeves from time to time ; 
while poor Jack, still weak from his long and 
terrible fast, marched bravely at our head with 
an indomitable pluck which reflected the highest 
credit on Mr. Macglashin’s training. 

The only one who seemed to make light of 
the toil was our black boy Nassaline. 

We went single file, of course, along the 
narrow trail, which every here and there divided 


IO 6 THE CRUISE OR THE ALBATROSS. 

to right or left in the midst of the brake with 
most puzzling complexity. At every such di- 
vision or fork in the track, Jack halted for a 
moment and cast his eye dubiously to one side 
and the other, at last selecting the trail that 
seemed best to him. Nassaline, too, helped us 
not a little by his savage instincts for finding 
his way through trackless* jungle. For my own 
part, I could never have believed any road on 
earth could possibly be so tortuous ; and at 
last, at the end of the twenty-fifth turn or there- 
abouts, I ventured to say in a very low voice 
(for we were stealing along in dead silence), 
“ Why, Jack, I believe you’re leading us round 
and round in a circle, and you’ll bring us out 
again, in the end, at the very same bay where 
we first landed ! ” 

“Hush!” Jack answered, with one finger on 
his lip. “ We’re drawing near the outskirts of 
the village now. You must be very quiet. I 
can just see the grass roof of Taranaka’s temple 
peeping above the brushwood to the right. In 
three minutes more we shall be out in the 


open. 


HOT WORK. 


107 


And sure enough he told the truth. Almost 
as he ceased speaking, the noise of savage 
voices fell full upon my ear from the village in 
front, and I could hear the natives, in their 
hideous corroboree, beating hard upon their 
hollow drums of stretched skin, and shouting 
in the dance to their drunken comrades. 

It was a ghastly noise, but it did our hearts 
good just then to hear it. 

I could almost have clapped my hands upon 
Jack’s back and given him three cheers for his 
gallant -guidance when we saw the village plot 
opening up in front of us, and the naked sav- 
ages, in their war-paint and feathers, guarding 
the door of Taranaka’s temple. But the neces- 
sity for caution compelled me to preserve a 
solemn silence. So we crouched as still as 
mice behind a clumpy thicket of close-leaved 
tiro bushes, and peeped out from our ambush 
through the dense foliage, to keep an eye upon 
the scene till the Albatross hove into sight in 
the harbor. 

“ My father and my mother must still be 
there,” Jack whispered under his breath, but 


o8 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


in a deep tone of relief. “ The Tanaki men 
are guarding them exactly as they did when 
Martin and I left the island. I almost think I 
can see Miriam’s head through the open door. 
We shall be in time still to deliver them from 
these bloodthirsty wretches.” 

“ In what direction must we look for the 
Albatross ? n I whispered back. “Will she 
come in from the south there ? ” 

“ Oh, no! ” Jack answered, in a very low voice. 
“ That’s an island to the right, — a little rocky 
island that guards the harbor. There’s deep 
water close in by the shore that side. Martin’ll 
try to bring her in the northern way, so that 
the natives mayn’t see her till she’s close upon 
the village. It’s a difficult channel to the north, 
all full of reefs and sunken rocks; but I think 
he understands it, he’s swam in it so often. 
We won’t see her at all till she’s right in the 
harbor and just opposite the temple.” 

We were dying of thirst now, and longing for 
a drink, but could get nothing to quench our 
drought. “ What I would give,” I muttered to 
Tom Blake, “for a drink of water!” 


HOT WORK. IO9 

“ If captain want water,” Nassaline answered, 
“ me soon get him some.” And he made a gash 
with his knife in the stem of a sort of gourd 
that climbed over the bushes, from which there 
slowly oozed and trickled out a sort of gummy 
juice that relieved to some degree our oppres- 
sive sensations. All the men began at once 
cutting and chewing it, with considerable satis- 
faction. It wasn’t as good as a glass of British 
beer, I will freely admit; but still, it was better 
than nothing, anyway. 

By this time it was nearly half-past six, and 
we watched eagerly to see what, action the 
natives would take as soon as they finished 
their night-long sing-sing . Lying flat on the 
ground, with our rifles ready at hand, and our 
heads just raised to look out among the foliage, 
we kept observing their movements cautiously 
through the thick brushwood. 

At a quarter to seven we saw some bustle 
and commotion setting in on a sudden in front 
of the temple ; and, presently, a tall, sinister- 
looking native, who, Jack whispered to me, was 
the chief of Tanaki, came up from the village, 


I IO 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


where the sing-sing had taken place, and stood 
by the door of the thatched grass-house. We 
could distinctly hear him call the missionary to 
come out, in pigeon-English ; and the next mo- 
ment, our unfortunate countryman staggered 
forth, with his little daughter, half fainting, in his 
arms, and stood out in the bare space between 
the tomb of Taranaka and the spot where we 
were lying. 

Oh ! how I longed to take a shot at that mis- 
creant black fellow! 

At sight of his father, worn with fatigue and 
pale with the terror of that agonizing moment, 
Jack almost cried aloud in his mingled joy and 
apprehension; but I clapped my hand on his 
mouth and kept him still for the moment. “ Not 
a sound, my boy, not a sound,” I whispered low, 
“ till the time comes for firing ! ” 

“Shall we give it them hot, now?” Tom Blake 
inquired low at my ear the next moment. But 
I waved him aside, cautiously. 

“Not yet,” I answered, “unless the worst 
comes to the worst, and we see our people in 
pressing and immediate danger ; we’d better 


HOT WORK. 


Ill 


do nothing till the Albatross heaves in sight. 
Her gun will frighten them. To fire now would 
be to expose ourselves and our friends there to 
unnecessary danger.” 

“ All right, sir,” Tom murmured low, in reply. 
“You know best, of course. But I must say, 
it’d do my ’eart good to up an’ pepper ’em ! ” 

“Come out, white woman!” we heard the 
chief say next, with insolent familiarity; and 
Mrs. Macglashin stepped out, a deplorable fig- 
ure, with her boy’s hand twined in hers, and 
her white lips twitching with horror for her 
little ones. It made one’s blood boil so, to see 
it, that we could hardly resist the temptation, as 
we looked, to fire at all hazards, and let them 
know good friends were even now close at hand 
to help and deliver them. 

“Whether the Albatross heaves in sight or 
not,” I whispered to Tom Blake, “ we must fire 
at them soon, — within five minutes, — and sell 
our lives as dearly as we can. I can’t stand 
this much longer. It’s too terrible a strain. 
Come what may, I must give the word and at 
them ! ” 


I 12 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


“ Quite right, sir,” says Tom. “ What’s the 
use of delaying ? ” 

And, indeed, I began to be terribly afraid, by 
this time, there was something very wrong in- 
deed somewhere. Could Martin have missed 
his way among those difficult shoals, and run 
our trusty vessel helplessly on the rocks and 
reefs ? It looked very like it. They were cer- 
tainly overdue; for even at the present crippled 
rate of speed, the good old Albatross had had 
plenty of time, I judged, to round the point and 
get back safe again into the deep water of the 
harbor. If she failed in this our hour of need, 
the natives would surround us, and cut us to 
pieces in a mass, for our best reliance was in 
our solid brass thirty-pounder. I began to 
tremble in my shoes for some time for the pos- 
sible upshot. Over and over again I glanced 
eagerly towards the point for that longed-for 
white nose of hers to appear round the corner. 

At last, unable to restrain my curiosity any 
longer, I rose to my feet and peered across the 
bushes. As I did so, I saw the savages seize 
Macglashin in their arms, and range the four 


HOT WORK. 


1 13 

poor fugitives in a line together. My blood 
curdled. The chief and the ten savages with 
the Sniders stood in a row, half fronting us 
where we lay. Macglashin and his wife were 
fortunately out of line of fire for our rifles. 
“ Now, we can delay no longer,” I cried. “ He 
means murder. The moment the black fellow 
gives the word of command, fire at once upon 
him and his men, boys. Take steady aim. No 
matter what comes. Let the poor souls have a 
run for their lives, anyway.” 

As I spoke, the chief uttered in Kanaka the 
native words for “One, two, three,” with loud 
drunken laughter. 

At the sound of the chiefs voice, the savages 
loosed the four wretched Europeans. At the 
very same sound we all fired simultaneously, — 
and six of the black monsters fell writhing on 
the ground, while the chief and the four others, 
taken completely by surprise, dropped their rifles 
in their supreme astonishment. 

“ Forward, boys, and secure them ! ” I cried, 
dashing out into the open, ^nd waving my hat 
to the astounded missionary. “ Here we are, sir. 


I 14 the cruise of the albatross. 

Run this way! We’re friends. We’ve come to 
your rescue. Catch the chief at once, lads ; 
and — hooray for the A Ibatross ! ” 

For, just as I spoke, to my joy and relief, her 
good white nose showed at last round the point ; 
and next instant, the boom ! boom ! of her jolly 
brass thirty-pounder, fired in the very nick of 
time, completed the discomfiture of the aston- 
ished savages. 

Before they knew where they were, they found 
themselves hemmed in between a raking cross- 
fire from our Sniders on one side, and the heavy 
gun of the Albatross on the other. The tables 
were now completely turned. We charged at 
them, running. Macglashin, seizing the situa- 
tion at a glance, caught up one of the rifles 
belonging to the wounded men, which had 
been flung upon the ground, and, hardly yet 
realizing his miraculous escape, joined our little 
party as an armed recruit with surprising alac- 
rity. For the next ten minutes there was a 
terrible scene of noise and confusion. The 
blacks advanced upon us, swarming up from 
the village like bees or wasps, and it was only 


HOT WORK. 


115 

by a hand-to-hand fight with our bayonets — 
for we had fortunately brought them in case of 
close quarters — that we kept our dusky enemy 
at bay. At last, however, after a smart hand- 
to-hand contest, we secured the chief, and tied 
him safely with the rope he had loosed from 
Macglashin. Then we seized the remaining 
Sniders that lay upon the ground, while the 
men of the village, drunk and stupefied, began 
to fall back a little and molest us from a 
distance. 

“ Now, put the lady and children in the cen- 
tre, boys,” I cried, at the top of my voice, “ and 
let the chief march along with us as a hostage. 
Down to the shore, while the Albatross boat 
puts out to save us ! ” Then I turned to the 
savages, and called out in English, “ If any one 
of you dares to fire at us, I give you fair warn- 
ing, we shoot your chief ! Hold off, there, all 
of you ! ” 

To my great delight, Nassaline, standing for- 
ward as I spoke, translated my words to them 
into their own tongue, and, waving them back 
with his hands, made a little alley for us through 


II 6 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

the midst to regain the shore by. Smart boy, 
Nassaline. 

After a moment, however, the natives once 
more began to crowd round us, as we started to 
march, in very threatening attitudes, with their 
Sniders and hatchets. At one time I almost 
thought they would overpower us ; but, just then, 
Jim, who was watching the proceedings with 
his glass, from the deck of the Albatross , and 
saw exactly how matters stood, created a judi- 
cious diversion at the exact right moment by 
firing a little grape-shot plump into the heart 
of the grass huts of the village, and bowling 
over a roof or two before the very eyes of the 
astonished savages. They fell back at once, 
and began to make signs of desiring a parley. 
So we halted on the spot, with the lady and 
children still carefully guarded, and held up 
our handkerchiefs in sign of truce. Then Nas- 
saline, aided by our sailor who understood the 
Kanaka language, began to palaver with them. 
He told them in plain and simple terms we 
must first be allowed to take the lady and chil- 
dren in safety to the Albatross , and that we 


HOT WORK. 


ii 7 

would afterwards come back to treat at greater 
length with their head men as to the chief’s 
safety. To this, after some demur, the black 
fellows assented ; and we beckoned to Jim ac- 
cordingly, by a preconcerted sign, to send the 
boat ashore to us, to fetch off the fugitives. 
At the same time we retreated in military order, 
in a small hollow square, to the beach, still 
taking good care to protect in the midst our 
terrified non-combatants. 

As for the chief, he marched before us, with 
his hands tied, and his feet free, led by a rope, 
the ends of which I held myself, with the aid of 
two of my sailors. A more ridiculously crest- 
fallen or disappointed creature than that drunken 
and conquered savage at that particular moment 
it has never yet been my fate to light upon. 

We reached the beach in safety, and sent 
Mrs. Macglashin and the children aboard, with 
Jack to accompany them. Then we turned to 
parley with the discomfited savages. Jim kept 
the thirty-pounder well pointed in their direc- 
tion, with ostentatious precision, and we made 
them hold off along the beach at a convenient 


II 8 THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 

distance, where he could rake them in se- 
curity, while we ourselves retained the chief 
in our hands, with a pistol at his head, as 
a gentle reminder that we meant to stand no 
nonsense. 

After a few minutes’ parley, conducted chiefly 
by our Kanaka-speaking sailor, with an occa- 
sional explanation put in by our assistant inter- 
preter, Nassaline, we arrived at an understanding, 
in accordance with which we were to return 
them their chief for the time being, on consid- 
eration of their bringing us down to the beach 
all the Macglashins’ goods, and making restitu- 
tion for the sack of the mission house in dried 
cocoanut, the sole wealth of the island. Those 
were the terms for the immediate present, as 
a mere personal matter; for the rest,' we gave 
the chief clearly to understand that we in- 
tended to sail straight away, with all our guests, 
for Fiji, there to lay our complaint of his con- 
duct before the British High Commissioner in 
the South Pacific. We would then charge him 
with murder and attempted cannibalism, and 
with stirring up his people to massacre the 


HOT WORK. 


119 

other missionary, and the trader Williams. We 
would endeavor to get a gunboat sent to the 
spot, to make official inquiry into the nature 
of the disturbances, and to demand satisfaction 
on the part of the relations of the murdered 
men. Finally, we would also lay before the 
Commissioner the conduct of the French labor- 
vessel, and her kidnapping skipper, who had 
instigated the savages to their dastardly attack, 
and whom I was strongly inclined to identify 
with the captain from whose grip we had 
rescued our friend Nassaline. We gave the 
chief to understand, therefore, that he must 
by no means consider himself as scot-free 
merely because we let him go unhurt till trial 
could be instituted by the proper authorities. 
He must answer hereafter for his high crimes 
and misdemeanors to the Queen’s representa- 
tive. 

To all of which the penitent savage merely 
answered, with a sigh : 

“ Me make mistake. Kill missionary by ac- 
cident. Man a oui-oui tell me Queenie England 
no care for Scotchman, an’ me too much believe 


120 


THE CRUISE OF THE ALBATROSS. 


him. Now captain tell me Queenie send gun- 
boat for eat me up, and kill all my people. No 
listen any more to man a oui-oui .” 

And then we put off in triumph to the Alba- 
tross . The family meeting that ensued on 
board, when Macglashin stood once more upon 
a British deck with his wife and children, I 
won’t attempt — rough sailor as I am — to de- 
scribe. I don’t believe even the special corre- 
spondent of a morning paper could do full jus- 
tice to it. To see those two lads, too, catch 
their pretty little sister once more in their arms, 
and cover her with kisses, while she clung to 
their necks, and cried and laughed alternately, 
was a sight to do a man’s heart good for an- 
other twelvemonth. And as we sat that same 
evening round the cabin-table (where our Malay 
cook had performed wonders of culinary art for 
the occasion), and drank healths all around to 
everybody concerned in this remarkable rescue, 
the toast that was received with the profound- 
est acclamations from every soul on board, was 
that of the two brave boys whose courage and 
skill had guided us at last, as if by a miracle, 


HOT WORK. 


12 1 


to the recovery of all that was nearest and 
dearest to them. 

Indeed, if Martin and Jack don’t get the 
Victoria Cross when we return to England, I 
shall have even a lower opinion than ever be- 
fore of her Majesty’s confidential political ad- 
visers of all creeds or parties. 





















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